Aurora Innovation, Inc 10-Q for FY2022 Q3
Aurora Innovation, Inc. (AUR)
10-Q
2022-11-03
For: 2022-09-30
View Original
Added on
April 08, 2026
About this 10-Q
Aurora Innovation, Inc filed this 10-Q on November 3, 2022, covering the quarter ended September 30, 2022 (FY2022 Q3).
Headline figures
Quarter ended September 30, 2022, as reported in this filing, compared with the same period a year earlier where the filing states it.
- Revenue
- $2.9M
- down 94.8% from $55.6M a year earlier
- Net loss
- $198.19M
- compared with a net loss of $133.35M a year earlier
- Diluted EPS
- -$0.17
- compared with -$0.25 a year earlier
UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
____________________________
FORM 10-Q
____________________________
(Mark One)
QUARTERLY REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 | |||||
For the quarterly period ended September 30, 2022
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 001-40216
____________________________
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
____________________________
(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization) | (I.R.S. Employer Identification No.) | |||||||
(Address of Principal Executive Offices) | (Zip Code) | |||||||
(888 ) 583-9506
Registrant's telephone number, including area code
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:
| Title of each class | Trading Symbol(s) | Name of each exchange on which registered | ||||||
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 x No o
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). Yes x No o
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer” and “smaller reporting company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):
Large accelerated filer | o | Accelerated filer | o | |||||||||||
x | Smaller reporting company | |||||||||||||
Emerging growth company | ||||||||||||||
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. o
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). Yes o No x
The registrant had outstanding 740,447,783 shares of Class A common stock and 423,806,298 shares of Class B common stock as of October 24, 2022.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
| Page | ||||||||
Item 1A. | Risk Factors | |||||||
i
Part I - Financial Information
Item 1. Financial Statements
Aurora Innovation, Inc.
Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets
(in thousands, except share data)
(unaudited)
| September 30, 2022 | December 31, 2021 | |||||||||||||
Assets | ||||||||||||||
Current assets: | ||||||||||||||
Cash and cash equivalents | $ | $ | ||||||||||||
Restricted cash | ||||||||||||||
| Short-term investments | ||||||||||||||
| Contract asset | ||||||||||||||
| Related party receivables | ||||||||||||||
Prepaid expenses and other current assets | ||||||||||||||
Total current assets | ||||||||||||||
Property and equipment, net | ||||||||||||||
Operating lease right-of-use assets | ||||||||||||||
Restricted cash, long-term | ||||||||||||||
Other assets | ||||||||||||||
Acquisition related intangible assets | ||||||||||||||
Goodwill | ||||||||||||||
Total assets | $ | $ | ||||||||||||
Liabilities and Stockholders’ Equity | ||||||||||||||
Current liabilities: | ||||||||||||||
Accounts payable | $ | $ | ||||||||||||
Related party payables | ||||||||||||||
Operating lease liabilities, current | ||||||||||||||
Accrued expenses and other current liabilities | ||||||||||||||
Total current liabilities | ||||||||||||||
Operating lease liabilities, long-term | ||||||||||||||
Deferred tax liabilities | ||||||||||||||
Warrant liabilities | ||||||||||||||
| Earnout shares liability | ||||||||||||||
Other long-term liabilities | ||||||||||||||
Total liabilities | ||||||||||||||
| Commitments and contingencies | ||||||||||||||
Stockholders’ equity: | ||||||||||||||
Common stock - $ | ||||||||||||||
Additional paid-in capital | ||||||||||||||
| Accumulated other comprehensive loss | ( | |||||||||||||
Accumulated deficit | ( | ( | ||||||||||||
Total stockholders’ equity | ||||||||||||||
Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity | $ | $ | ||||||||||||
See accompanying notes to unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements
1
Aurora Innovation, Inc.
Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations
(in thousands, except share and per share data)
(unaudited)
| Three Months Ended September 30, | Nine Months Ended September 30, | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2022 | 2021 | 2022 | 2021 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Collaboration revenue | $ | $ | $ | $ | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Operating expenses: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Research and development | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Selling, general and administrative | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Goodwill impairment | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Total operating expenses | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Loss from operations | ( | ( | ( | ( | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Other income (expense): | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Change in fair value of derivative liabilities | ( | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Other income (expense), net | ( | ( | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Loss before income taxes | ( | ( | ( | ( | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Income tax expense (benefit) | ( | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Net loss | $ | ( | $ | ( | $ | ( | $ | ( | ||||||||||||||||||
Basic and diluted net loss per share | $ | ( | $ | ( | $ | ( | $ | ( | ||||||||||||||||||
Basic and diluted weighted-average shares outstanding | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
See accompanying notes to unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements
2
Aurora Innovation, Inc.
Condensed Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Loss
(in thousands)
(unaudited)
| Three Months Ended September 30, | Nine Months Ended September 30, | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2022 | 2021 | 2022 | 2021 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Net loss | $ | ( | $ | ( | $ | ( | $ | ( | ||||||||||||||||||
Other comprehensive loss: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Unrealized loss on investments | ( | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Other comprehensive loss | ( | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Comprehensive loss | $ | ( | $ | ( | $ | ( | $ | ( | ||||||||||||||||||
See accompanying notes to unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements
3
Aurora Innovation, Inc.
Condensed Consolidated Statements of Redeemable Convertible Preferred Stock and Stockholders’ Equity
(in thousands, except share data)
(unaudited)
| Redeemable convertible preferred stock | Common stock | Additional paid-in capital | Accumulated other comprehensive loss | Accumulated deficit | Total stockholders’ equity (deficit) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Shares | Amount | Shares | Amount | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Balance as of December 31, 2020 | $ | $ | $ | $ | $ | ( | $ | ( | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Issuance of Series U-1 redeemable convertible preferred stock at $ | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Issuance of Series U-2 redeemable convertible preferred stock at $ | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Equity issued in relation to acquisitions | — | — | — | — | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Equity issued under incentive compensation plans | — | — | — | — | — | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stock-based compensation | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Comprehensive loss | — | — | — | — | — | — | ( | ( | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Balance as of September 30, 2021 | $ | $ | $ | $ | $ | ( | $ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Balance as of December 31, 2021 | — | $ | — | $ | $ | $ | $ | ( | $ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Equity issued under incentive compensation plans | — | — | — | — | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stock-based compensation | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Comprehensive loss | — | — | — | — | — | ( | ( | ( | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Balance as of September 30, 2022 | — | $ | — | $ | $ | $ | ( | $ | ( | $ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
See accompanying notes to unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements
4
Aurora Innovation, Inc.
Condensed Consolidated Statements of Redeemable Convertible Preferred Stock and Stockholders’ Equity
(in thousands, except share data)
(unaudited)
| Redeemable convertible preferred stock | Common stock | Additional paid-in capital | Accumulated other comprehensive loss | Accumulated deficit | Total stockholders’ equity | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Shares | Amount | Shares | Amount | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Balance as of June 30, 2021 | $ | $ | $ | $ | $ | ( | $ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Equity issued under incentive compensation plans | — | — | — | — | — | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stock-based compensation | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Comprehensive loss | — | — | — | — | — | — | ( | ( | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Balance as of September 30, 2021 | $ | $ | $ | $ | $ | ( | $ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Balance as of June 30, 2022 | — | — | $ | $ | $ | ( | $ | ( | $ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Equity issued under incentive compensation plans | — | — | — | — | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Stock-based compensation | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Comprehensive loss | — | — | — | — | — | ( | ( | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Balance as of September 30, 2022 | — | $ | — | $ | $ | $ | ( | $ | ( | $ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
See accompanying notes to unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements
5
Aurora Innovation, Inc.
Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows
(in thousands)
(unaudited)
| Nine Months Ended September 30, | ||||||||||||||
| 2022 | 2021 | |||||||||||||
Cash flows from operating activities | ||||||||||||||
Net loss | $ | ( | $ | ( | ||||||||||
Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash used in operating activities: | ||||||||||||||
Depreciation and amortization | ||||||||||||||
Reduction in the carrying amount of right-of-use assets | ||||||||||||||
Stock-based compensation | ||||||||||||||
| Goodwill impairment | ||||||||||||||
| Change in fair value of derivative liabilities | ( | |||||||||||||
Non-cash severance | ||||||||||||||
Change in deferred tax asset valuation allowance | ( | |||||||||||||
| Other | ||||||||||||||
Changes in operating assets and liabilities: | ||||||||||||||
| Contract asset | ( | |||||||||||||
Prepaid expenses and other current assets | ( | |||||||||||||
Other assets | ( | ( | ||||||||||||
Accounts payable | ( | ( | ||||||||||||
Operating lease liabilities | ( | ( | ||||||||||||
Accrued expenses and other current and non-current liabilities | ( | ( | ||||||||||||
Net cash used in operating activities | ( | ( | ||||||||||||
Cash flows from investing activities | ||||||||||||||
Purchases of property and equipment | ( | ( | ||||||||||||
Net cash acquired in acquisitions | ||||||||||||||
Purchase of short-term investments | ( | |||||||||||||
| Maturities of short-term investments | ||||||||||||||
| Other | ( | |||||||||||||
Net cash (used in) provided by investing activities | ( | |||||||||||||
Cash flows from financing activities | ||||||||||||||
Proceeds from issuance of common stock | ||||||||||||||
Proceeds from issuance of Series U-2 preferred stock, net | ||||||||||||||
Other | ( | |||||||||||||
Net cash provided by financing activities | ||||||||||||||
Net (decrease) increase in cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash | ( | |||||||||||||
Cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash at beginning of the period | ||||||||||||||
Cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash at end of the period | $ | $ | ||||||||||||
See accompanying notes to unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements
6
Aurora Innovation, Inc.
Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements
(in thousands, except share and per share data)
(unaudited)
(1) Overview of the Organization
Aurora Innovation, Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries (the “Company” or “Aurora”) was initially incorporated as a Cayman Islands exempted company on October 2, 2020 and was formerly known as Reinvent Technology Partners Y (“RTPY”).
On November 3, 2021 (the “Closing Date” or “Closing”), the Company filed a notice of deregistration with the Cayman Islands Registrar of Companies, domesticated as a Delaware corporation, and changed its name to Aurora Innovation, Inc. As contemplated by the Agreement and Plan of Merger dated July 14, 2021 (the “Merger Agreement”), Aurora consummated a merger transaction (the “Merger”) whereby RTPY Merger Sub, Inc., a direct subsidiary of the Company, merged with and into Aurora Innovation Holdings, Inc. (“Legacy Aurora”), a Delaware corporation (f/k/a Aurora Innovation, Inc.). The Company’s common stock is listed on the NASDAQ under the symbol “AUR” and the Company’s warrants to purchase shares of Class A common stock are listed on the NASDAQ under the symbol “AUROW”. The Merger was accounted for as a reverse capitalization, and operations prior to the Closing presented are those of Legacy Aurora.
The Company designs and develops the Aurora Driver, which is the hardware, software, and data services that allow vehicles to drive themselves.
(2) Significant Accounting Policies
Basis of Presentation
The unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements have been prepared in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”) and include the financial statements of the Company and its consolidated subsidiaries. All intercompany transactions and balances have been eliminated in consolidation. Certain information and note disclosures normally included in financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP have been condensed or omitted pursuant to rule and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”).
The information included herein should be read in conjunction with the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, as amended. The condensed consolidated balance sheet as of December 31, 2021 included in the condensed consolidated financial statements was derived from the audited financial statements as of that date but does not contain all of the footnote disclosures from the annual financial statements.
The condensed consolidated financial statements reflect, in the opinion of management, all adjustments of a normal, recurring nature necessary for a fair statement of our financial position, results of operations, and cash flows for the periods presented but are not necessarily indicative of the expected results for the full fiscal year or any future period.
Risks and Uncertainties Including Business and Credit Concentrations
The Company’s principal operations are the research, design, and implementation of the Aurora Driver. The Company is currently researching and developing its proprietary technology with the goal of commercializing the Aurora Driver. The Company expects that it will need to raise additional capital to support its continued development and commercialization of the Aurora Driver. Risks and uncertainties to the Company’s operations include failing to secure additional funding and the threat of other companies developing and bringing to market similar technology at an earlier time than the Company.
7
Recently Adopted Accounting Standards
In December 2020, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) issued Accounting Standards Update (“ASU”) 2019-12, Simplifying the Accounting for Income Taxes, which simplifies accounting for income taxes by revising or clarifying existing guidance in ASC 740, Income Taxes, as well as removing certain exceptions within ASC 740. The Company adopted the standard effective January 1, 2022 and there was not a material impact on the interim financial statements.
In June 2016, the FASB issued ASU 2016-13, Financial Instruments—Credit Losses (Topic 326): Measurement of Credit Losses on Financial Instruments, that replaces the incurred loss impairment methodology in current GAAP. The new impairment model requires immediate recognition of estimated credit losses expected to occur for most financial assets and certain other instruments. Entities will apply the standard’s provisions as a cumulative-effect adjustment to retained earnings as of the beginning of the first effective reporting period. The Company adopted the standard effective January 1, 2022 and there was not a material impact on the interim financial statements.
(3) Balance Sheet Detail
(a)Fair Value of Financial Instruments
The Company uses a three-level hierarchy, which prioritizes, within the measurement of fair value, the use of market-based information over entity-specific information for fair value measurement based on the nature of inputs used in the valuation of an asset or liability as of the measurement date. Fair value focuses on an exit price and is defined as the price that would be received to sell an asset or paid to transfer a liability in an orderly transaction between market participants at the measurement date. The inputs or methodology used for valuing financial instruments are not necessarily an indication of the risk associated with those financial instruments.
The three-level hierarchy for fair value measurements is defined as follows:
•Level 1: Inputs to the valuation methodology are quoted prices (unadjusted) for identical assets or liabilities in active markets;
•Level 2: Inputs to the valuation methodology included quoted prices for similar assets and liabilities in active markets, and inputs that are observable for the asset or liability, either directly or indirectly, for substantially the full term of the financial instrument; and
•Level 3: Inputs to the valuation methodology, which are significant to the fair value measurement, are unobservable.
An asset or liability’s categorization within the valuation hierarchy is based upon the lowest level of input that is significant to the fair value measurement.
8
The fair values for financial assets and liabilities measured on a recurring basis were as follows:
As of September 30, 2022 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Total | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Cash equivalents: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Money market funds | $ | $ | $ | $ | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| U.S. Treasury securities | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Total cash equivalents | $ | $ | $ | $ | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Short-term investments: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| U.S. Treasury securities | $ | $ | $ | $ | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Total short-term investments | $ | $ | $ | $ | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Liabilities: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Public warrants | $ | $ | $ | $ | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Private placement warrants | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Earnout shares liability | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Total liabilities | $ | $ | $ | $ | ||||||||||||||||||||||
As of December 31, 2021 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Total | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Cash equivalents: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Money market funds | $ | $ | $ | $ | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Total cash equivalents | $ | $ | $ | $ | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Liabilities: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Public warrants | $ | $ | $ | $ | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Private placement warrants | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Earnout shares liability | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Total liabilities | $ | $ | $ | $ | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Cash equivalents and short-term investments are measured at fair value on a recurring basis based on quoted market prices or other readily available market information. The amortized cost, unrealized gains and losses, and fair value of available-for-sale debt securities were as follows:
As of September 30, 2022 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Amortized cost | Unrealized losses | Fair value | |||||||||||||||||||||
| U.S. Treasury securities | $ | $ | ( | $ | |||||||||||||||||||
The public warrants and private placement warrants (see Note 7: Derivative Liabilities) are measured at fair value on a recurring basis. The public warrants are valued based on the closing price of the publicly traded instrument. The private placement warrants are valued using observable inputs for similar publicly traded instruments.
The earnout shares liability (see Note 7: Derivative Liabilities) is measured at fair value on a recurring basis. The fair value was determined using a Monte Carlo simulation with a risk free rate of 3.87 % and 1.52 % and volatility of 50.00 % and 50.00 % as of September 30, 2022 and December 31, 2021, respectively.
| Earnout shares liability | |||||||||||
Balance as of December 31, 2021 | $ | ||||||||||
Change in fair value | ( | ||||||||||
Balance as of September 30, 2022 | $ | ||||||||||
9
(b)Property and Equipment, Net
The components of property and equipment, net were as follows:
| As of | |||||||||||||||||
| September 30, 2022 | December 31, 2021 | ||||||||||||||||
Land | $ | $ | |||||||||||||||
Furniture and fixtures | |||||||||||||||||
Test and lab equipment | |||||||||||||||||
Leasehold improvements | |||||||||||||||||
Computer and equipment | |||||||||||||||||
Computer software | |||||||||||||||||
Automobile | |||||||||||||||||
Buildings | |||||||||||||||||
Less accumulated depreciation and amortization | ( | ( | |||||||||||||||
Total property and equipment, net | $ | $ | |||||||||||||||
(c)Goodwill
The changes in the carrying amount of goodwill were as follows:
| As of | As of | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| December 31, 2021 | Goodwill impairment | September 30, 2022 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Goodwill | $ | $ | — | $ | |||||||||||||||||||
| Accumulated impairment loss | ( | ( | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Carrying amount of goodwill | $ | $ | ( | $ | |||||||||||||||||||
During the second quarter of 2022, the market price of the Company’s Class A common stock and its market capitalization declined significantly. As a result, the Company determined that a triggering event had occurred and an interim goodwill impairment assessment was performed.
The Company utilized a market approach valuation method utilizing the observable market price of the Company’s Class A common stock as it represented the best evidence of the fair value of its reporting unit. Based on the results, the Company recognized a $1,000,081 goodwill impairment during the nine months ended September 30, 2022.
(d)Accrued Expenses and Other Current Liabilities
The components of accrued expenses and other current liabilities were as follows:
| As of | |||||||||||||||||
| September 30, 2022 | December 31, 2021 | ||||||||||||||||
Accrued compensation | $ | $ | |||||||||||||||
Other accrued expenses | |||||||||||||||||
Total accrued expenses and other current liabilities | $ | $ | |||||||||||||||
(4) Collaboration Revenue
10
Collaboration revenue is recognized using the input measure of hours expended as a percentage of total estimated hours to complete the collaboration project plan. In the three and nine months ended September 30, 2022, the Company recognized collaboration revenue of $2,897 and $65,628 , respectively. To date, the Company has recognized cumulative revenue under the agreement of $148,166 through September 30, 2022.
Differences between collaboration revenue recognized and payments collected under the agreement are recognized as a contract asset or contract liability at the end of each reporting period.
(5) Acquisitions
Apparate USA LLC
On January 19, 2021, the Company acquired 100 % of the voting interests of Apparate USA LLC (“Uber Advanced Technologies Group” or “ATG”) which was a company developing self-driving technology.
The acquisition date fair value of the consideration transferred for ATG was approximately $1,915,708 which consisted of stock consideration. The stock consideration transferred comprised 110,437,359 shares of the Company’s Series U-1 preferred stock and 252,194,518 shares of the Company’s common stock. The preferred stock was valued referencing the concurrent purchase of the Company’s Series U-2 redeemable convertible preferred stock. The common stock was valued based on the fair value as of January 19, 2021, as determined by a third-party valuation expert using an Option Pricing Method model.
The transaction costs associated with the acquisition were $15,113 in the nine months ended September 30, 2021 and were recorded in selling, general and administrative.
The Company accounted for the ATG acquisition as a business combination, and therefore the assets acquired and liabilities assumed were recognized at their fair values on the date of the ATG acquisition. The following table summarizes the fair values of assets acquired and liabilities assumed as of the date of the ATG acquisition:
| Fair Value | |||||||||||
Cash and cash equivalents | $ | ||||||||||
Prepaid expenses and other current assets | |||||||||||
Property and equipment, net | |||||||||||
Operating lease right-of-use assets | |||||||||||
Other assets | |||||||||||
Acquisition related intangible assets | |||||||||||
Goodwill | |||||||||||
Accounts payable | ( | ||||||||||
Related party payable | ( | ||||||||||
Accrued expenses and other current liabilities | ( | ||||||||||
Operating lease liabilities | ( | ||||||||||
| Deferred tax liability | ( | ||||||||||
Total | $ | ||||||||||
The sole identifiable intangible asset acquired in the ATG acquisition was in-process research and development (IPR&D) and has an indefinite useful life as of the date of the acquisition. The fair value of the IPR&D intangible asset was determined through a replacement cost approach, which identifies the costs that would be necessary to recreate the asset if the Company were to internally develop the acquired technology. Significant unobservable inputs include overhead costs, profit margin, opportunity cost, and obsolescence.
The asset has not been placed into service and there have been no impairments related to the intangible asset as of September 30, 2022.
The excess of purchase consideration over the fair value of net tangible and identifiable intangible assets acquired was recorded as goodwill, which is primarily attributed to the assembled workforce, and is not deductible for tax purposes.
During the nine months ended September 30, 2021, the Company recognized $7,873 in non-cash severance paid by the former parent of ATG. This amount was allocated from total equity consideration transferred.
11
OURS Technology, Inc.
On March 5, 2021, the Company acquired 100 % of the voting interests in OURS Technology, Inc. (“OURS”), a silicon photonics company. The Company has included the financial results of OURS in the condensed consolidated financial statements prospectively from the date of acquisition. The OURS acquisition date fair value of the consideration transferred for OURS was approximately $40,821 , which consisted of the following
| Fair Value | |||||||||||
Cash | $ | ||||||||||
Stock consideration | |||||||||||
Assumed liabilities related to third-party expenses | |||||||||||
Total | $ | ||||||||||
As part of the OURS acquisition, the Company assumed certain OURS compensation agreements, including the conversion of certain shares of OURS restricted stock into rights to receive the Company’s restricted stock, and assuming certain stock options with an estimated fair value of $3,789 . For the stock options assumed, based on the service period related to the period prior to the OURS acquisition date, $2,145 was allocated to the purchase price, and $1,644 relating to post-acquisition services which will be recorded as operating expenses over the remaining requisite service periods.
The stock consideration transferred comprised 6,064,675 shares of the Company’s common stock including 396,067 shares of restricted stock granted. The restricted stock awards (RSAs) were valued based on the March 5, 2021 fair value, as determined by a third party valuation expert using an Option Pricing Method model, and the estimated fair value of the stock options assumed by the Company was determined using the Black-Scholes option pricing model. The RSAs vest monthly over a 2 -year period starting on the vesting commencement date and expire once the holder ceases to be a service provider of the Company.
The Company has accounted for the OURS acquisition as a business combination, and therefore the assets acquired and liabilities assumed were recognized at their fair values on the date of the OURS acquisition. The following table summarizes the fair values of assets acquired and liabilities assumed as of the date of the OURS acquisition:
| Fair Value | |||||||||||
Cash and cash equivalents | $ | ||||||||||
Prepaid expenses and other current assets | |||||||||||
Property and equipment, net | |||||||||||
Other assets | |||||||||||
Acquisition related intangible assets | |||||||||||
Goodwill | |||||||||||
Accounts payable | ( | ||||||||||
Deferred tax liability | ( | ||||||||||
Total | $ | ||||||||||
The sole identifiable intangible asset acquired in the OURS acquisition was in-process research and development (IPR&D) and has an indefinite useful life as of the date of the acquisition. The fair value of the IPR&D intangible asset was determined through a replacement cost approach, which identifies the costs that would be necessary to recreate the asset if the Company were to internally develop the acquired technology. Significant unobservable inputs include profit margin and opportunity cost.
The asset has not been placed into service and there have been no impairments related to the intangible asset as of September 30, 2022.
The excess of purchase consideration over the fair value of net tangible and identifiable intangible assets acquired was recorded as goodwill, which is primarily attributed to the assembled workforce, and is not deductible for tax purposes.
12
(6) Stockholders’ Equity
Preferred Stock
The Company is authorized to issue 1,000,000,000 shares of preferred stock with a par value of $0.00001 per share. There were no
Common Stock
The Company is authorized to issue 51,000,000,000 shares of common stock with a par value of $0.00001 per share; of which 50,000,000,000 shares are designated Class A common stock and 1,000,000,000 shares are designated Class B common stock. Class A common stock holders are entitled to one vote for each share and Class B common stock holders are entitled to ten votes for each share. Class A and Class B have identical liquidation and dividend rights. Class B shares are convertible into Class A upon election by the holder or upon transfer (except for certain permitted transfers).
The Company had 733,134,746 641,721,837 424,706,298 481,107,977
(7) Derivative Liabilities
Common Stock Warrants
On the consummation of the Merger, 12,218,750 publicly traded warrants for Class A common stock at an exercise price per share of $11.50 and 8,900,000 private placement warrants held by the Sponsor with an exercise price per share of $11.50 converted automatically into warrants of Aurora common stock.
Public warrants outstanding were 12,218,291 and 12,218,420 as of September 30, 2022 and December 31, 2021, respectively. During the nine months ended September 30, 2022, 129 public warrants were exercised for total cash proceeds of $1 .
Private placement warrants outstanding were 8,900,000 and 8,900,000 as of September 30, 2022 and December 31, 2021, respectively.
The estimated fair value of the warrant liabilities was $9,925 and $65,678 at September 30, 2022 and December 31, 2021, respectively. For the three and nine months ended September 30, 2022, a $1,478 loss and $55,753 gain, respectively, was recognized in changes in fair value of derivative liabilities in the consolidated statements of operations.
Public Warrants
Public warrants were exercisable beginning on December 3, 2021. The Company may redeem the public warrants when the last reported sales price of Class A common stock for any 20 trading days within a 30 trading day period ending on the third trading day prior to the date on which the Company sends the notice of redemption to the warrant holders (the “Reference Value”) exceeds $10.00 or $18.00 . Warrants are redeemable in whole and upon a minimum of 30 days’ prior written notice.
If the Reference Value exceeds $18.00 , warrants are redeemable at $0.01 per warrant, in whole and upon a minimum of 30 days prior written notice that holders will be able to exercise their warrants.
If the Reference Value exceeds $10.00 , warrants are redeemable at $0.10 per warrant, in whole and upon a minimum of 30 days prior written notice that holders will be able to exercise their warrants on a cashless basis prior to redemption and receive that number of shares determined by reference to an agreed table based on the redemption date and the fair market value of Class A ordinary shares. Fair market value of Class A common stock is the volume-weighted average price of Class A ordinary shares for the 10 trading days following the date on which the notice of redemption is sent. The number of ordinary shares received upon exercise is capped at 0.361 shares of Aurora Class A common stock per warrant.
13
Private Placement Warrants
Private placement warrants are not redeemable by the Company as long as they are held by a Sponsor or its permitted transferees. If the Reference value exceeds $18.00 per share and the Company elects to redeem the public warrants, the private placement warrants are exercised.
If the public warrants are redeemed by the Company when the Reference Value equals or exceeds $10.00 , the private placement warrants are also concurrently called for redemption on the same terms as of the public warrants.
If the public warrants are redeemed by the Company when the Reference Value exceeds $18.00 per share, the Sponsor will exercise the private placement warrants for cash or on a cashless basis.
Earnout Shares Liability
In connection with the execution of the Merger Agreement, the Company, Legacy Aurora and the Sponsor entered into the Sponsor Agreement on July 14, 2021. Under the agreement, the Sponsor was issued 5,162,314 earnout shares which were recorded as liabilities due to lock-up and price-based vesting conditions as follows:
•1,720,772 shares vest when it has been at least 2 years since the Closing and the volume weighted average price (“VWAP”) of the Company’s class A common stock equals or exceeds $15.00 for 20 trading days of any consecutive 30 trading day period
•1,720,771 shares vest when it has been at least 3 years since the Closing and the VWAP equals or exceeds $17.50 for 20 trading days of any consecutive 30 trading day period; and,
•1,720,771 shares vest when it has been at least 4 years since the Closing and the VWAP equals or exceeds $20.00 for 20 trading days of any consecutive 30 trading day period.
The estimated fair value of the earnout shares liability was $5,076 and $52,380 at September 30, 2022 and December 31, 2021, respectively. For the three and nine months ended September 30, 2022, a $1,153 loss and $47,304 gain, respectively, was recognized in changes in fair value of derivative liabilities in the consolidated statements of operations. No earnout shares subject to lock-up and price-based vesting have vested as of September 30, 2022.
(8) Equity Incentive Plans
The Company has outstanding awards granted under four equity compensation plans: the 2021 Equity Incentive Plan (the “Plan”), the Legacy Aurora 2017 Equity Incentive Plan (the “2017 Plan”), the Blackmore Sensors & Analytics, Inc. 2016 Equity Incentive Plan (the “Blackmore Plan”), and the OURS Technology Inc 2016 Stock Incentive Plan (the “OURS Plan”). The Company assumed awards under the 2017 Plan, the Blackmore Plan and the OURS Plan to the extent such employees continued as employees of the Company.
On November 2, 2021, the Company adopted the Plan. The Plan makes available for issuance Class A common shares equal to 120,900,000 shares plus any shares subject to awards assumed in the Merger that are forfeited or otherwise expire after the Closing. Additionally, the Plan includes an annual increase on the first day of each fiscal year beginning in fiscal 2022 and ending in fiscal 2031 equal to the lesser of (i) 120,900,000 , (ii) 5 % of total shares outstanding on the last day of the preceding fiscal year, and (iii) a lesser number of shares determined by the Plans’ administrator. Any stock options, restricted stock units (“RSU”s) or other awards from the 2017 Plan, the Blackmore Plan, or the OURS Plan that, on or after the Closing, expire or otherwise terminate without having been exercised or issued in full are added to the Plan up to a maximum of 120,692,205 shares. As of September 30, 2022, there were 82,078,448 shares available for grant under the Plan.
Under the Plan, equity-based compensation in the form of RSUs, restricted stock awards, incentive stock options, nonqualified stock options, stock appreciation rights, and performance units may be granted to employees, officers, directors, consultants, and others.
14
Stock Options
The exercise price of stock options granted under the Plan and the 2017 Plan may not be less than 100 % of the fair value of the Company’s common stock on the date of the grant. Stock options generally vest over to four years starting on the vesting commencement date and expire, if not exercised, 10 years from the date of grant or, if earlier, three months after the option holder ceases to be a service provider of the Company. Stock options outstanding under the Blackmore Plan and the OURS Plan are not material.
Stock option activity under the Plan and the 2017 Plan was as follows:
| Stock options outstanding | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Number of shares | Weighted average exercise price | Weighted average remaining contractual term (in years) | Aggregate intrinsic value | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Balance, December 31, 2021 | $ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Granted | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Exercised | ( | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Forfeited | ( | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Balance, September 30, 2022 | $ | $ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Exercisable, September 30, 2022 | $ | $ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stock-based compensation recognized for stock options for the three months ended September 30, 2022 and 2021 was $4,011 and $5,835 , respectively. Stock-based compensation recognized for stock options for the nine months ended September 30, 2022 and 2021 was $12,797 and $18,293 , respectively. The unrecognized stock-based compensation related to unvested stock options was $28,932 as of September 30, 2022 and will be recognized over a weighted average period of 1.4 years.
Restricted Stock Units
RSUs granted under the 2017 Plan generally are subject to two vesting requirements: (1) a time-based vesting requirement, and (2) a liquidity event. Generally, the time-based vesting requirement is quarterly over four years starting on the vesting commencement date, with a one-year cliff. The liquidity event vesting requirement was satisfied with the closing of the Merger in November 2021.
RSUs granted under the Plan generally are subject to a time-based vesting requirement. Generally, the time-based vesting requirement is quarterly over to four years starting on the vesting commencement date, with a one-year cliff vesting for new hire awards.
RSU activity under the Plan and the 2017 Plan was as follows:
| Unvested RSUs outstanding | ||||||||||||||
| Number of shares | Weighted- average grant date fair value | |||||||||||||
Balance, December 31, 2021 | $ | |||||||||||||
Granted | ||||||||||||||
| Vested | ( | |||||||||||||
Forfeited | ( | |||||||||||||
Balance, September 30, 2022 | $ | |||||||||||||
Stock-based compensation recognized for RSUs for the three months ended September 30, 2022 and September 30, 2021 was $32,665 and $— , respectively. Stock-based compensation recognized for RSUs for the nine months ended September 30, 2022 and September 30, 2021 was $92,420 and $— , respectively. The unrecognized stock-based compensation related to unvested RSUs was $351,610 at September 30, 2022 and will be recognized over a weighted average period of 2.8 years.
15
Related Party RSUs
Prior to the ATG acquisition, employees of ATG received grants of RSUs in the former ultimate parent company of ATG, which became a related party of the Company after the closing of the transaction. These awards were modified after the transaction to allow the awards to continue to vest for the first year subsequent to the closing of the acquisition as long as personnel remain employees of the Company. These awards are compensation for services provided to the Company and accounted for as stock-based compensation.
Awards representing 2,928,854 shares were modified on the acquisition date and 538,140 shares were forfeited before the final vesting in January 2022. The fair value of these awards was equal to the market value of the related party’s common stock on the date of modification.
Stock-based compensation recognized for related party RSUs for the three months ended September 30, 2022 and September 30, 2021 was $0 and $33,518 , respectively. Stock-based compensation recognized for related party RSUs for the nine months ended September 30, 2022 and September 30, 2021 was $6,200 and $98,512 , respectively. No unrecognized stock-based compensation remains for the related party RSUs as of September 30, 2022.
Stock-based Compensation Expense
Stock-based compensation is allocated on a departmental basis, based on the classification of the option holder or grant recipient. No income tax benefits have been recognized in the statement of operations for stock-based compensation arrangements and no stock-based compensation has been capitalized as of September 30, 2022.
Total stock-based compensation expense by function was as follows:
| Three Months Ended September 30, | Nine Months Ended September 30, | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2022 | 2021 | 2022 | 2021 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Research and development | $ | $ | $ | $ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Selling, general, and administrative | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Total | $ | $ | $ | $ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
(9) Income Taxes
(10) Leases
The Company leases its office facilities, data centers, and warehouses under non-cancelable operating lease agreements that expire between 2022 through 2042, including renewal options that are reasonably certain to be exercised by the Company.
At September 30, 2022 and December 31, 2021, the Company’s operating leases had a weighted average remaining lease term of 8.9 years and 9.3 years, respectively, and a weighted average discount rate of 6.4 % and 6.2 %, respectively.
Operating lease expense was $6,853 and $20,970 in the three and nine months ended September 30, 2022, respectively, and was $7,051 and $19,063 in the three and nine months ended September 30, 2021, respectively.
(11) Commitments and Contingencies
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(12) Supplemental Cash Flow Information
Non-cash investing and financing activities were as follows:
| Nine Months Ended September 30, | |||||||||||||||||
| 2022 | 2021 | ||||||||||||||||
Noncash investing and financing activities: | |||||||||||||||||
Property and equipment included in accounts payable | $ | $ | |||||||||||||||
Vesting of early exercised stock options | |||||||||||||||||
Non-cash acquisition | |||||||||||||||||
(13) Earnings Per Share
The Company computes earnings per share of common stock using the two-class method required for participating securities. The participating securities did not impact the computation of earnings per share in the periods presented as no dividends were declared and the participating securities are not contractually obligated to share in losses.
Subsequent to the Merger, the Company has two classes of common stock with identical liquidation and dividend rights, Class A and Class B. The net loss is allocated in a proportionate basis to each class of common stock and results in the same net loss per share.
Share amounts and net loss per share have been recast for the nine months ended September 30, 2021 to reflect the Exchange Ratio from the Merger.
The following table presents the potential common stock outstanding excluded from the computation of diluted loss per share because including them would have had an antidilutive effect:
| As of | ||||||||||||||
| September 30, 2022 | September 30, 2021 | |||||||||||||
Redeemable convertible preferred stock | ||||||||||||||
Stock options | ||||||||||||||
Restricted stock units | ||||||||||||||
| Private placement warrants | ||||||||||||||
| Public warrants | ||||||||||||||
| Earnout shares liability | ||||||||||||||
Total | ||||||||||||||
(14) Related Parties
In January 2021, the Company paid $10,000 relating to financial advisory fees with a former related party for a contract that was entered into by the Company in December 2020. The Company recognized $8,250 in selling, general and administrative expenses and $1,750 as a reduction to redeemable convertible preferred stock for issuance costs in the nine months ended September 30, 2021.
The Company assumed a net liability of $46,970 from the ATG acquisition for an obligation due to the former owner of ATG, an affiliate of Uber Technologies, Inc. (“Uber”). Uber became a related party of the Company subsequent to the ATG acquisition. The net related party liability was paid during the nine months ended September 30, 2021.
In January 2021, Uber and its affiliates paid $7,873 in severance to former employees of ATG which was reimbursed by the Company. In December 2021 and January 2022, the Company made withholding tax payments for equity compensation for former employees of ATG and received a $12,770 reimbursement in the nine months ended September 30, 2022 from Uber and its affiliates.
17
During the three and nine months ended September 30, 2022, the Company recognized operating expenses of $3,422 and $7,480 , respectively, related to the transition service agreement and ongoing operating services provided by Uber and its affiliates. During the three and nine months ended September 30, 2021, the Company recognized operating expense of $1,363 and $4,450 , respectively, related to the transition service agreement provided by Uber and its affiliates. The term of the transition service agreement expired during the first quarter of 2022.
At September 30, 2022 and December 31, 2021, the Company recorded related party payables to Uber and its affiliates of $3,326 and $540 , respectively. At September 30, 2022 and December 31, 2021, the Company recorded related party receivables from Uber and its affiliates of $0 and $10,726 , respectively.
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CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q (this “Quarterly Report”) contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, which statements involve substantial risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or our future financial or operating performance. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as “may,” “might,” “possible,” “will,” “should,” “expect,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “could,” “intend,” “target,” “project,” “contemplate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential” or “continue” or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions that concern our expectations, strategy, plans or intentions. Forward-looking statements contained in this Quarterly Report include statements about:
•our ability to recognize anticipated benefits of the Merger, which may be affected by, among other things, our ability to grow and manage growth profitably following the closing of the Merger;
•our ability to commercialize the Aurora Driver safely, quickly, and broadly on the timeline we expect;
•the market for autonomous vehicles and our market position;
•our ability to compete effectively with existing and new competitors;
•the ability to maintain the listing of our Class A Common Stock and warrants on Nasdaq;
•our ability to raise financing in the future;
•anticipated trends, growth rates, and challenges in our business and in the markets in which we operate;
•our ability to effectively manage our growth and future expenses;
•the sufficiency of our cash and cash equivalents to meet our operating requirements;
•our success in retaining or recruiting, or changes required in, our officers, key employees or directors;
•the impact of the regulatory environment and complexities with compliance related to such environment;
•our ability to successfully collaborate with business partners;
•our ability to obtain, maintain, protect and enforce our intellectual property;
•economic and industry trends or trend analysis;
•the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic; and
•other factors detailed under the section entitled “Risk Factors.”
We caution you that the foregoing list does not contain all of the forward-looking statements made in this Quarterly Report.
You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. We have based the forward-looking statements contained in this Quarterly Report primarily on our current expectations and projections about future events and trends that we believe may affect our business, operating results, financial condition and prospects. The outcome of the events described in these forward-looking statements is subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, including those described in the section titled “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this Quarterly Report. Moreover, we operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks and uncertainties emerge from time to time and it is not possible for us to predict all risks and uncertainties that could have an impact on the forward-looking statements contained in this Quarterly Report. We cannot assure you that the results, events and circumstances reflected in the forward-looking statements will be achieved or occur, and actual results, events or circumstances could differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements.
Neither we nor any other person assumes responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of any of these forward-looking statements. Moreover, the forward-looking statements made in this Quarterly Report relate only to events as of the date on which the statements are made. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made in this Quarterly Report to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this Quarterly Report or to reflect new information or the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law. You should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements. Our forward-looking statements do not reflect the potential impact of any future acquisitions, mergers, dispositions, joint ventures or investments we may make.
19
Item 2. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations
The following discussion and analysis of the financial condition and results of operations of Aurora should be read together with Aurora’s unaudited financial statements as of and for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2022 and 2021, together with related notes thereto, included elsewhere in this Quarterly Report. The discussion and analysis should also be read together with the section entitled “Aurora’s Business” below. The following discussion contains forward-looking statements that reflect future plans, estimates, beliefs and expected performance. The forward-looking statements are dependent upon events, risks and uncertainties that may be outside of Aurora’s control and actual results may differ significantly from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause future results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those discussed in “Part II, Item 1A. Risk Factors” of this Quarterly Report and under the heading “Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” included elsewhere in this Quarterly Report.
Percentage amounts included in this Quarterly Report have not in all cases been calculated on the basis of such rounded figures, but on the basis of such amounts prior to rounding. For this reason, percentage amounts in this Quarterly Report may vary from those obtained by performing the same calculations using the figures in our unaudited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Quarterly Report. Certain other amounts that appear in this Quarterly Report may not sum due to rounding.
Unless otherwise indicated or the context otherwise requires, references in this Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations section to “Aurora,” “we,” “us,” “our” and other similar terms refer to Legacy Aurora prior to the Merger and to Aurora and its consolidated subsidiaries after giving effect to the Merger.
Aurora’s Business
Aurora is developing the Aurora Driver based on what it believes to be the most advanced and scalable suite of self-driving hardware, software, and data services in the world to fundamentally transform the over $9 trillion global transportation market. The Aurora Driver is designed as a platform to adapt and interoperate amongst vehicle types and applications. To date, it has been successfully integrated into nine different vehicle platforms: from passenger vehicles to light commercial vehicles to Class 8 trucks. By creating one driver system for multiple vehicle types and use cases, Aurora’s capabilities in one market reinforce and strengthen its competitive advantages in others. For example, highway driving capabilities developed for trucking will carry to highway segments driven by passenger vehicles in ride hailing applications. We believe this approach will enable us to target and transform multiple massive markets, including the $4 trillion global trucking market, the $5 trillion global passenger mobility market, and the $400 billion U.S. local goods delivery market.
We expect that the Aurora Driver will ultimately be commercialized in a Driver as a Service (“DaaS”) business model, in which we will supply self-driving technology. We do not intend to own nor operate a large number of vehicles ourselves. Throughout commercialization, we expect to earn revenue on a fee per mile basis. We intend to partner with OEMs, fleet operators, and other third parties to commercialize and support Aurora-powered vehicles. We expect that these strategic partners will support activities such as vehicle manufacturing, financing and leasing, service and maintenance, parts replacement, facility ownership and operation, and other commercial and operational services as needed. We expect this DaaS model to enable an asset-light and high margin revenue stream for Aurora, while allowing us to scale more rapidly through partnerships. During the start of commercialization, though, we expect to briefly operate our own logistics and mobility services, where we own and operate a small fleet of vehicles equipped with our Aurora Driver. This level of control is useful during early commercialization as we will define operational processes and playbooks for our partners.
We plan to first launch Aurora Horizon, our driverless trucking subscription service, as we believe that is where we can make the largest impact the fastest, given the massive industry demand, attractive unit economics, and the ability to deploy on high volume highway-focused routes. Future success will be dependent on our ability to execute against our product roadmap to launch Aurora Horizon. From there, we plan to leverage the extensibility of the Aurora Driver to deploy and scale into the passenger mobility market with Aurora Connect, our driverless ride hailing subscription service, and longer-term the local goods delivery market.
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Results of Operations
Comparison of the Three Months Ended September 30, 2022 to the Three Months Ended September 30, 2021
The following table sets forth a summary of our consolidated results of operations for the periods indicated, and the changes between periods.
| Three Months Ended September 30, | $ Change | % Change | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2022 | 2021 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (in thousands, except for percentages) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Collaboration revenue | $ | 2,897 | $ | 55,599 | $ | (52,702) | (94.8) | % | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Operating expenses: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Research and development | 170,490 | 158,135 | 12,355 | 7.8 | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Selling, general and administrative | 32,511 | 25,898 | 6,613 | 25.5 | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Total operating expenses | 203,001 | 184,033 | 18,968 | 10.3 | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Loss from operations | (200,104) | (128,434) | (71,670) | 55.8 | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Other income (expense): | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Change in fair value of derivative liabilities | (2,631) | — | (2,631) | n/m(1) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Other income (expense), net | 4,542 | (4,911) | 9,453 | n/m(1) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Loss before income taxes | (198,193) | (133,345) | (64,848) | 48.6 | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Income tax expense (benefit) | 1 | — | 1 | n/m(1) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Net loss | $ | (198,194) | $ | (133,345) | $ | (64,849) | 48.6 | % | |||||||||||||||||||||
(1) Not meaningful.
Collaboration revenue
Collaboration revenue decreased by $52.7 million, or 94.8%, to $2.9 million in the three months ended September 30, 2022 from $55.6 million in the three months ended September 30, 2021, due to lower hours incurred toward the completion of the collaboration project plan with Toyota Motor Corporation. Through September 30, 2022, the Company has recognized cumulative revenue of $148.2 million from the $150.4 million of cash payments received under the agreement.
Research and development
Research and development increased by $12.4 million, or 7.8%, to $170.5 million in the three months ended September 30, 2022 from $158.1 million in the three months ended September 30, 2021, primarily driven by an increase in payroll and development costs, partially offset by a decrease in stock-based compensation.
Selling, general and administrative
Selling, general, and administrative increased by $6.6 million, or 25.5%, to $32.5 million in the three months ended September 30, 2022 from $25.9 million in the three months ended September 30, 2021, primarily driven by an increase in payroll, stock-based compensation and insurance costs.
Change in fair value of derivative liabilities
The change in fair value of derivative liabilities resulted in a loss of $2.6 million in the three months ended September 30, 2022 primarily due to the change in the market price for the underlying instrument.
Other income (expense), net
Other income, net was $4.5 million in the three months ended September 30, 2022, primarily due to interest income earned on short-term investments. Other expenses, net was $4.9 million in the three months ended September 30, 2021, primarily due to losses on the disposal of IT equipment.
21
Comparison of the Nine Months Ended September 30, 2022 to the Nine Months Ended September 30, 2021
The following table sets forth a summary of our consolidated results of operations for the periods indicated, and the changes between periods.
| Nine Months Ended September 30, | $ Change | % Change | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2022 | 2021 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (in thousands, except for percentages) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Collaboration revenue | $ | 65,628 | $ | 55,599 | $ | 10,029 | 18.0 | % | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Operating expenses: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Research and development | 508,365 | 477,056 | 31,309 | 6.6 | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Selling, general and administrative | 97,030 | 80,224 | 16,806 | 20.9 | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Goodwill impairment | 1,000,081 | — | 1,000,081 | n/m(1) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Total operating expenses | 1,605,476 | 557,280 | 1,048,196 | 188.1 | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Loss from operations | (1,539,848) | (501,681) | (1,038,167) | 206.9 | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Other income (expense): | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Change in fair value of derivative liabilities | 103,057 | — | 103,057 | n/m(1) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Other income (expense), net | 7,615 | (4,738) | 12,353 | n/m(1) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Loss before income taxes | (1,429,176) | (506,419) | (922,757) | 182.2 | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Income tax expense (benefit) | 3 | (2,643) | 2,646 | n/m(1) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Net loss | (1,429,179) | (503,776) | $ | (925,403) | 183.7 | % | |||||||||||||||||||||||
(1) Not meaningful.
Collaboration revenue
Collaboration revenue increased by $10.0 million, or 18.0%, to $65.6 million in the nine months ended September 30, 2022 from $55.6 million in the nine months ended September 30, 2021 due to higher hours incurred toward the completion of the collaboration project plan with Toyota Motor Corporation. Through September 30, 2022, the Company has recognized cumulative revenue of $148.2 million from the $150.4 million of cash payments received under the agreement.
Research and development
Research and development increased by $31.3 million, or 6.6%, to $508.4 million in the nine months ended September 30, 2022 from $477.1 million in the nine months ended September 30, 2021, primarily driven by an increase in payroll costs and hardware developments costs, partially offset by a decrease in severance expense and stock-based compensation.
Selling, general and administrative
Selling, general and administrative increased by $16.8 million, or 20.9%, to $97.0 million in the nine months ended September 30, 2022 from $80.2 million in the nine months ended September 30, 2021, primarily driven by an increase in payroll, stock-based compensation and insurance costs, partially offset by a decrease in professional services costs.
Goodwill impairment
The Company recognized a goodwill impairment of $1,000.1 million during the nine months ended September 30, 2022 as a result of an interim goodwill impairment assessment performed due to a significant decline in the market price of the Company’s Class A common stock and its market capitalization during the second quarter.
Change in fair value of derivative liabilities
The change in fair value of derivative liabilities resulted in a gain of $103.1 million in the nine months ended September 30, 2022 primarily due to the change in the market price for the underlying instrument.
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Other income (expense), net
Other income, net was $7.6 million in the nine months ended September 30, 2022, primarily due to interest income earned on short-term investments. Other expenses, net was $4.7 million in the nine months ended September 30, 2021, primarily due to losses on the disposal of IT equipment.
Income tax expense (benefit)
An income tax benefit was recognized in the nine months ended September 30, 2021 due to the release of a deferred tax asset valuation allowance as a result of deferred tax liabilities incurred from the acquisition of OURS Technology, Inc.
Liquidity and Capital Resources
As of September 30, 2022, our principal sources of liquidity were $486.6 million of cash and cash equivalents and $750.7 million of short-term investments, exclusive of short-term and long-term restricted cash of $0.6 million and $15.8 million, respectively. Cash and cash equivalents primarily consist of U.S. Treasury securities and money market funds. Short-term investments consist of U.S. Treasury securities.
We have incurred negative cash flows from operating activities and significant losses from operations in the past. We expect to continue to incur operating losses and that we will need to opportunistically raise additional capital to support the continued development and commercialization of the Aurora Driver. We believe our cash on hand and short-term investments will be sufficient to meet our working capital and capital expenditure requirements for a period of at least twelve months from the date of this Quarterly Report.
Cash Flows
The following table summarizes our cash flows for the periods indicated (in thousands):
| Nine Months Ended September 30, | |||||||||||||||||
| 2022 | 2021 | ||||||||||||||||
| (in thousands) | |||||||||||||||||
Net cash used in operating activities | $ | (367,833) | $ | (420,854) | |||||||||||||
Net cash (used in) provided by investing activities | (765,792) | 262,311 | |||||||||||||||
Net cash provided by financing activities | 10,392 | 402,571 | |||||||||||||||
Net (decrease) increase in cash | (1,123,233) | 244,028 | |||||||||||||||
Cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash at beginning of the period | 1,626,247 | 399,828 | |||||||||||||||
Cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash at end of the period | $ | 503,014 | $ | 643,856 | |||||||||||||
Cash Flows Used in Operating Activities
Net cash used in operating activities was $367.8 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2022, a decrease of $53.0 million from $420.9 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2021. The change in operating cash flows was primarily due to an increase of cash received in connection with the collaboration agreement, partially offset by increased incentive compensation payments and the professional fees and other expenses paid in connection with the acquisition of ATG which did not recur during the current period.
Cash Flows (Used in) Provided by Investing Activities
Net cash used in investing activities increased by $1,028.1 million in the nine months ended September 30, 2022 from the nine months ended September 30, 2021, primarily due to the purchases of short-term investments, net of maturities, of $753.8 million, and the comparative period including $294.4 million in net cash acquired in acquisitions.
Cash Flows Provided by Financing Activities
Net cash provided by financing activities decreased by $392.2 million in the nine months ended September 30, 2022 from the nine months ended September 30, 2021, primarily due to the comparative period including net proceeds from the issuance of Series U-2 preferred stock of $397.9 million.
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Contractual Obligations, Commitments and Contingencies
Aurora may be party to various claims within the normal course of business. Legal fees and other costs associated with such actions are expensed as incurred. We assess the need to record a liability for litigation and other loss contingencies, with reserve estimates recorded if we determine that a loss related to the matter is both probable and reasonably estimable. No material losses were recorded in the three and nine months ended September 30, 2022 and 2021.
Critical Accounting Estimates
Our condensed consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, or U.S. GAAP. Preparation of the financial statements requires our management to make judgments, estimates and assumptions that impact the reported amount of net sales and expenses, assets and liabilities and the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities. We consider an accounting judgment, estimate or assumption to be critical when (1) the estimate or assumption is complex in nature or requires a high degree of judgment and (2) the use of different judgments, estimates and assumptions could have a material impact on our consolidated financial statements. Our significant accounting policies are described in Note 2 to our unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Quarterly Report and in the notes to the consolidated financial statements included in Part II, Item 8 of the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year-ended December 31, 2021, as amended (the “Annual Report”). Other than as described below, there have been no material changes to our critical accounting estimates since our Annual Report.
Valuation of Goodwill
Goodwill represents the excess purchase consideration of acquired businesses over the estimated fair value of the net assets acquired and is not amortized. Goodwill is evaluated for impairment annually on December 31, or whenever events or circumstances indicate that the carrying amount may not be recoverable. If the carrying amount of a reporting unit exceeds its fair value, an impairment loss is recognized for any excess of the carrying amount of the reporting unit’s goodwill over the implied fair value of the goodwill.
During the second quarter of 2022, the market price of the Company’s Class A common stock and its market capitalization declined significantly. As a result, the Company determined that a triggering event had occurred and an interim goodwill impairment assessment was performed.
The Company utilized a market approach valuation method utilizing the observable market price of the Company’s Class A common stock as it represented the best evidence of the fair value of its reporting unit. Based on the results, the Company recognized a $1,000.1 million goodwill impairment during the nine months ended September 30, 2022.
As of September 30, 2022, the Company’s carrying value of goodwill was $113.7 million. To the extent there are future entity-specific or macroeconomic conditions that negatively impact the market price of the Company’s Class A common stock and its market capitalization, additional goodwill impairments may be necessary.
Emerging Growth Company Status
Section 102(b)(1) of the JOBS Act exempts emerging growth companies from being required to comply with new or revised financial accounting standards until private companies are required to comply with the new or revised financial accounting standards. The JOBS Act provides that a company can elect not to take advantage of the extended transition period and comply with the requirements that apply to non-emerging growth companies, and any such election to not take advantage of the extended transition period is irrevocable. We are an “emerging growth company” as defined in Section 2(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and have elected to take advantage of the benefits of this extended transition period. The Company expects to remain an emerging growth company at least through the end of 2023, when we expect to qualify as a large accelerated filer, and will have the benefit of the extended transition period. This may make it difficult to compare our financial results with the financial results of other public companies that are either not emerging growth companies or emerging growth companies that have chosen not to take advantage of the extended transition period.
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Item 3. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk
We are exposed to a variety of market and other risks, including the effects of changes in interest rates, and inflation, as well as risks to the availability of funding sources, hazard events, and specific asset risks.
Interest Rate Risk
Our results of operations are directly exposed to changes in interest rates, among other macroeconomic conditions. Interest rate risk is highly sensitive to many factors, including governmental monetary and tax policies, domestic and international economic and political considerations, and other factors beyond our control.
We do not believe that an increase or decrease in interest rates of 100-basis points would have a material effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.
Inflation Risk
We do not believe that inflation has had a material effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations, other than its impact on the general economy. Nonetheless, if our costs were to become subject to inflationary pressures, we may not be able to fully offset such higher costs through price increases. Our inability or failure to do so could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Item 4. Controls and Procedures
Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures
Our management evaluated, with the participation of our current chief executive officer and chief financial officer (our “Certifying Officers”), the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures as of September 30, 2022, pursuant to Rule 13a-15(b) under the Exchange Act. Based upon that evaluation, our Certifying Officers concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective as of September 30, 2022.
Disclosure controls and procedures are controls and other procedures that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in our reports filed or submitted under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms. Disclosure controls and procedures include, without limitation, controls and procedures designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in company reports filed or submitted under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to management, including our chief executive officer and chief financial officer, to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.
Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting
There was no change in our internal control over financial reporting that occurred during the fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2022 covered by this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.
Limitations on the Effectiveness of Controls
Control systems, no matter how well conceived and operated, are designed to provide a reasonable, but not an absolute, level of assurance that the objectives of the control system are met. Further, the design of a control system must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints, and the benefits of controls must be considered relative to their costs. Because of the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, have been detected. Because of the inherent limitations in any control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and not be detected.
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PART II - OTHER INFORMATION
Item 1. Legal Proceedings
We are from time to time subject to various claims, lawsuits and other legal and administrative proceedings arising in the ordinary course of business. However, we do not consider any such claims, lawsuits or proceedings that are currently pending, individually or in the aggregate, to be material to our business or likely or result in a material adverse effect on our future operating results, financial condition or cash flows.
Item 1A. Risk Factors
Investing in our securities involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the following risks, together with all of the other information contained in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, before making an investment decision. Our business, financial condition, results of operations or prospects could be materially and adversely affected by any of these risks or uncertainties, as well as by risks or uncertainties not currently known to us, or that we do not currently believe are material. In that case, the trading price of our common stock could decline, and you may lose all or part of your investment.
The following summary risk factors and other information included in this Quarterly Report should be carefully considered. The summary risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks and uncertainties not currently known to us or that we currently deem less significant may also affect our business operations or financial results. If any of the following risks actually occur, our stock price, business, operating results and financial condition could be materially adversely affected. For more information, see below for more detailed descriptions of each risk factor.
•Self-driving technology is an emerging technology, and we face significant technical challenges to commercialize our technology.
•We are an early stage company with a history of losses, and we expect to incur significant expenses and continuing losses for the foreseeable future.
•Our limited operating history makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and the risks and challenges we may encounter.
•Our progress and performance metrics are subject to inherent challenges in measurement, and real or perceived inaccuracies in such metrics and metrics and values that are below expectations could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results.
•We operate in a highly competitive market and some market participants have substantially greater resources. If one or more of our competitors broadly commercialize their self-driving technology before we do, develop superior technology, or are perceived to have better technology, our business prospects and financial performance would be adversely affected.
•Our services and technology may not be accepted and adopted by the market at the pace we expect or at all.
•We may require significantly more additional capital investment to run our business than previously expected.
•It is possible that Aurora’s self-driving unit economics do not materialize as expected.
•We are highly dependent on the services of our senior management team, without which we may not be able to successfully implement our business strategy.
•Our future capital needs may require us to sell additional equity or debt securities that may dilute our stockholders.
•We may experience difficulties in managing our growth and expanding our operations.
•Our operating and financial results projections that were previously provided rely in large part upon assumptions and analyses developed by us. If these assumptions or analyses prove to be incorrect, our actual results of operations may be materially different from our projections and our estimates of certain financial metrics may prove inaccurate.
•We could fail to successfully select, execute or integrate past and future acquisitions.
•Interruption or failure of Amazon Web Services or other information technology and communications systems that we rely upon could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
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•We are subject to cybersecurity risks to operational systems, security systems, infrastructure, integrated software and partners and end-customers data processed by us or third-party vendors or suppliers.
•Unauthorized control or manipulation of systems in autonomous vehicles may cause them to operate improperly or not at all, or compromise their safety and data security.
•Failures, or perceived failures, to comply with privacy, data protection, and information security requirements in the variety of jurisdictions in which we operate, or may operate, may adversely impact our business.
•Our future insurance coverage may not be adequate to protect us from all business risks or may be prohibitively expensive.
•Our warrants are accounted for as liabilities and the changes in value of our warrants could have a material effect on our financial results.
•If we are unable to develop and maintain an effective system of internal control over financial reporting, we may not be able to accurately report our financial results in a timely manner, which may adversely affect investor confidence in us and materially and adversely affect our business and operating results.
•Unanticipated changes in effective tax rates, adverse outcomes resulting from examination of our income, changes in tax laws or regulations, changes in our ability to utilize our net operating loss, or other tax-related changes could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
•Our success is contingent on our ability to successfully maintain, manage, execute and expand on our existing partnerships and obtain new partnerships.
•We are dependent on our suppliers, some of which are single or limited source suppliers, and these suppliers may not produce and deliver necessary and industrialized components at prices and volumes and on terms acceptable to us.
•Burdensome regulations, inconsistent regulations, or a failure to receive regulatory approvals of our technology could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operation.
•We may become involved in legal and regulatory proceedings and commercial or contractual disputes.
•We may be subject to product liability that could result in significant direct or indirect costs.
•We may not be able to adequately protect or enforce our intellectual property rights, in which case our business and competitive position could be harmed.
•We may need to defend ourselves against intellectual property infringement claims, which may be time-consuming and could cause us to incur substantial costs.
•We could lose the rights to use certain intellectual property that we rely upon if the underlying license agreements are terminated or not renewed.
•Our software contains third-party open-source software components, and failure to comply with the terms of the underlying open-source software licenses could restrict our ability to sell our products or give rise to disclosure obligations of proprietary software.
•The market price of our common stock may be volatile and could decline significantly.
•Our dual class structure has the effect of concentrating voting power with our founders, which limits an investor’s ability to influence the outcome of important transactions, including a change in control.
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Risks Related to Our Technology, Business Model and Industry
Self-driving technology is an emerging technology, and we face significant technical challenges to commercialize our technology. If we cannot successfully overcome those challenges or do so on a timely basis, our ability to grow our business will be negatively impacted.
Solving self-driving is one of the most difficult engineering challenges of our generation. The industry can be characterized by a significant number of technical and commercial challenges, including an expectation for better-than-a-human driving performance, large funding requirements, long vehicle development lead times, specialized skills and expertise requirements of personnel, inconsistent and evolving regulatory frameworks, a need to build public trust and brand image, and real world operation of an entirely new technology. If we are not able to overcome these challenges, our business, prospects, financial condition, and results of operations will be negatively impacted and our ability to create a viable business may not materialize at all.
Although we believe that our self-driving systems and supporting technology are promising, we cannot assure you that our technology will succeed commercially. The successful development of our self-driving systems and related technology involves many challenges and uncertainties, including:
•achieving sufficiently safe self-driving system performance as determined by us, government & regulatory agencies, our partners, customers, and the general public;
•finalizing self-driving system design, specification, and vehicle integration;
•successfully completing system testing, validation, and safety approvals;
•obtaining additional approvals, licenses or certifications from regulatory agencies, if required, and maintaining current approvals, licenses or certifications;
•receiving performance by third parties that supports our R&D and commercial activities;
•preserving core intellectual property rights, while obtaining rights from third parties for intellectual property that may be critical to our R&D activities; and
•continuing to fund and maintain our current technology development activities.
We are an early stage company with a history of losses, and we expect to incur significant expenses and continuing losses for the foreseeable future.
We have incurred net losses on an annual basis since our inception. During the nine months ended September 30, 2022, we incurred net losses of $1,429.2 million, including a non-cash goodwill impairment of $1,000.1 million. We believe that we will continue to incur operating and net losses each quarter until at least the time we begin commercial operation of our self-driving technology, which may take longer than we currently expect or may never occur. Even if we successfully develop and sell our self-driving solutions, there can be no assurance that they will be commercially successful. We expect the rate at which we will incur losses to be substantially higher in future periods (excluding the non-cash goodwill impairment recognized in nine months ended September 30, 2022) as we continue to scale our development and commercialize products. Because we will incur the costs and expenses from these efforts before we receive incremental revenues with respect thereto, our losses in future periods will be significant. In addition, we may find that these efforts are more expensive than we currently anticipate or that these efforts may not result in revenues, which would further increase our losses.
Our limited operating history makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and the risks and challenges we may encounter.
We began operations in 2017 and have been focused on developing self-driving technology ever since. This relatively limited operating history makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and the risks and challenges we may encounter. Risks and challenges we have faced or expect to face include our ability to:
•design, develop, test, and validate our self-driving technology for commercial applications;
•produce and deliver our technology at an acceptable level of safety and performance;
•properly price our products and services;
•plan for and manage capital expenditures for our current and future products;
•hire, integrate and retain talented people at all levels of our organization;
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•forecast our revenue, budget for and manage our expenses;
•attract new partners and retain existing partners;
•navigate an evolving and complex regulatory environment;
•manage our supply chain and supplier relationships related to our current and future products;
•anticipate and respond to macroeconomic changes and changes in the markets in which we operate;
•maintain and enhance the value of our reputation and brand;
•effectively manage our growth and business operations, including the impacts of unforeseen market changes on our business;
•develop and protect intellectual property; and
•successfully develop new solutions, features, and applications to enhance the experience of partners and end-customers.
If we fail to address the risks and difficulties that we face, including those associated with the challenges listed above, as well as those described elsewhere in this “Risk Factors” section, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected. Further, because we have limited historical financial data and operate in a rapidly evolving market, any predictions about our future revenue and expenses may not be as accurate as they would be if we had a longer operating history or operated in a more predictable market. We have encountered in the past, and will encounter in the future, risks and uncertainties frequently experienced by growing companies with limited operating histories in rapidly changing industries. If our assumptions regarding these risks and uncertainties, which we use to plan and operate our business, are incorrect or change, or if we do not address these risks successfully, our results of operations could differ materially from our expectations and our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.
It is possible that our technology will have more limited performance or may take us longer to complete than is currently projected. This would adversely impact our addressable markets, commercial competitiveness, and business prospects.
Our products and self-driving system are technical and complex, and commercial application requires that we meet very high standards for technology performance and system safety. We may be unable to timely release new products that meet our intended commercial use cases, and we may therefore experience more limited monetization of our technology. These risks are particularly relevant for factors such as our self-driving system’s operational domain (i.e., the conditions under which our system is designed to operate), which includes variables such as traversable road networks, speeds, and weather patterns. It is possible that there may be additional limitations in our operating capabilities depending upon a number of factors, including, for example, vehicle type (e.g. car, truck) and actor density (e.g. pedestrians, cyclists). If that is the case, we may be more restricted in our addressable market opportunities.
Commercial deployment has taken longer in the self-driving industry than anticipated, and it may take us more time to complete our own technology development and commercialization than is currently projected. The achievement of broadly applicable self-driving technology will require further technology improvements including, for example, handling non-compliant or unexpected actor behavior and inclement weather conditions. These improvements may take us longer than expected which would increase our capital requirements for technology development, delay our timeline to commercialization, and reduce the potential financial returns that may be expected from the business.
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We plan to publicly disclose certain progress and performance metrics, including the Autonomy Readiness Measure and the Autonomy Performance Indicator. These metrics are subject to inherent challenges in measurement; real or perceived inaccuracies in such metrics and metrics values that are below expectations could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
We plan to publicly disclose a measure of our progress toward the commercial launch of Aurora Horizon (the “Autonomy Readiness Measure”). The Autonomy Readiness Measure is the weighted function of completeness of our Safety Case (which is an internally-derived, claims-based approach that provides a generalized structured argument to addressing safety items implicated by developing and operating self-driving technology on public roads). There are inherent challenges in calculating the Autonomy Readiness Measure, including the fact that management judgment is used when applying weighting to individual pieces of evidence that support the claims that we are making in our Safety Case (e.g., based on complexity, effort required to complete, scope of the Company’s commercial launch route, etc.) as well as when evaluating the percentage complete of a particular piece of evidence. If individual pieces of evidence supporting the claims of our Safety Case turn out to be more complex, more challenging to complete, insufficiently comprehensive or conclusive, or more time or capital intensive than we originally anticipated, adjustments will be required to be made to our calculations of the Autonomy Readiness Measure. If our Autonomy Readiness Measure is not an accurate representation of our progress toward commercial launch, or if investors perceive this measure not to be accurate, or if we discover material inaccuracies in the Safety Case or our calculations of the Autonomy Readiness Measure, our reputation may be significantly harmed, the timing of commercial launch of Aurora Horizon could be delayed, and our stock price could decline, any of which could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
We also plan to publicly disclose supplemental information regarding the on-road performance of the Aurora Driver (the “Autonomy Performance Indicator”). There are inherent challenges in calculating this metric. For example, one of the components of this indicator is commercially representative miles driven where the vehicle received human assistance via a vehicle operator intervention or other on-site support, but where it is determined, through internal analysis including simulation, that the support received was not required by the Aurora Driver. There is management judgment involved in using internal analysis to determine whether or not such human assistance was necessary, and third parties may reasonably disagree with positions taken by the Company on such determinations. Further, it is possible that we could conclude that human assistance was not necessary even where the Aurora Driver did not perform correctly and/or in a way that we intended. Additionally, we do not expect the Autonomy Performance Indicator to increase linearly as we approach commercial launch, nor do we anticipate that this indicator will be 100% even at launch, because certain situations (e.g., flat tires) will always require on-site support. If the Autonomy Performance Indicator is not an accurate representation of the Aurora Driver’s on-road performance, if investors do not perceive it to be accurate, or it does not convey the level of performance anticipated, our reputation may be significantly harmed, our stock price could decline, and it could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
In addition, our internal systems and tools have a number of limitations, and our methodologies for tracking the Autonomy Readiness Measure and the Autonomy Performance Indicator may change over time, which could result in unanticipated changes to the metrics or estimates that we publicly disclose. If the internal systems and tools we use to track these metrics are not an accurate indicator of our performance or contain other technical errors, the data we report may not be accurate. While these numbers are based on what we believe to be reasonable estimates of our metrics for the applicable period of measurement, there are inherent challenges in measuring our progress toward commercial launch.
We operate in a highly competitive market and some market participants have substantially greater resources. If one or more of our competitors broadly commercialize their self-driving technology before we do, develop superior technology, or are perceived to have better technology, our business prospects and financial performance would be adversely affected.
The market for self-driving technology is highly competitive and can be characterized by rapid technological change. Our future success will depend on our ability to develop and commercialize in a sufficiently timely manner in order to maintain competitiveness. Several companies, including, but not limited to, Waymo, GM Cruise, TuSimple, Tesla, Zoox/Amazon, Argo AI, Apple, Motional, Pony.ai, Intel Mobileye, Nuro, and Embark are investing heavily in building this technology. These companies compete with us directly by offering self-driving technology for the same or similar use cases. If our competitors, including those previously mentioned, broadly commercialize their technology before we do, develop superior technology, or are perceived to have better technology, they may capture market opportunities and establish relationships with customers and partners that might otherwise have been available to us.
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Material commercialization of self-driving technology first involves pilot deployments, which we and other competitors are currently performing. Competitors may initiate pilot deployments in various different use cases and/or geographies earlier than we will. Several of these competitors have substantial financial, marketing, R&D, and other resources. In the event that one or many of these competitors broadly commercializes their technology before we do, our business prospects and financial performance would be adversely impacted.
Our services and technology may not be accepted and adopted by the market at the pace we expect or at all.
Self-driving technology is still nascent and is neither generally understood nor universally accepted. We are at risk of adverse publicity that stems from any public incident involving self-driving vehicles (whether involving Aurora or a competitor), which could result in decreased end-customer demand for our technology. Part of our commercialization plan includes public awareness and education campaigns, but this guarantees neither public nor customer acceptance of our services. If we cannot gain sufficient trust in our technology, we will be unable to commercialize as intended. We may also experience adverse publicity that argues self-driving technology is replacing human jobs and disrupting the economy. Such media attention could cause current and future partners to terminate their business with us, which would significantly impact our ability to make future sales.
Further, as the market for self-driving cars develops, the differences in the approaches of Aurora and others will become more widely known to suppliers, insurers, regulators and others. Until these distinctions are known and appreciated, the actions of a single market participant may be imputed to the self-driving industry as a whole. As such, as a result of an action or inaction by a third-party, it is possible that suppliers, insurers, regulators and others may refuse or cease to interact with or conduct business with the self-driving industry as a whole, including Aurora.
If the market does not accept and adopt our services and technology at the pace we expect or at all, it could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
We expect that our business model will become less capital intensive as we transition our business to our Driver as a Service model and if that transition is delayed or does not occur, we will require significant additional capital investment to run our business.
Our business plan envisions a two-phase process for ownership and operation of Aurora-powered self-driving vehicles. Early in our commercialization, we intend to own or lease and operate a limited fleet and will invest in self-driving system hardware, base vehicles, and commercial facilities (such as freight terminals). We believe this firsthand experience will help us to harden our operational processes, service level agreements, and enable a more effective transition to working with external partners on operational activities. After this initial period of Aurora ownership and operation, we expect to transition to a Driver as a Service business model. Under this model, one or more third-party partners would own and operate Aurora-powered vehicles and would also manage activities such as financing, maintenance, cleaning, and fleet facilities.
Since it is more capital-intensive for us to own or lease and operate our own fleet of vehicles, any delay in the transition to the Driver as a Service model will require additional investments of capital and could mean we may not be able to reach scale as quickly as projected in prior filings. In addition, it is possible that we may be required to fund and operate commercial facilities as part of our product offering, as opposed to partnering with third parties. Although we believe, based on partner discussions, that such a transition will be possible in our intended timeframes, there is no guarantee that third parties will be able or willing to own and operate Aurora-powered vehicles as soon or ramp as quickly as expected at desirable commercial terms. Similarly, we expect to partner with other third parties who will own and operate terminal facilities, but we may determine that we will need to own or operate more of these facilities ourselves. Such difficulties could have adverse impacts on our business, prospects, financial condition, and growth potential. As such, this model may present unpredictable challenges associated with third-party dependency which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
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It is possible that Aurora’s self-driving unit economics do not materialize as expected, in particular as we transition to our Driver as a Service model. This could significantly hinder our ability to generate a commercially viable product and adversely affect our business prospects.
Our business model is premised on our future expectations and assumptions regarding unit economics of the Aurora Driver and our transition, including the timing thereof, to our Driver as a Service model. There are uncertainties in these assumptions and we may not be able to achieve the unit economics we expect for many reasons, including but not limited to:
•costs of the self-driving system hardware;
•other fixed and variable costs associated with self-driving vehicle operation;
•useful life;
•vehicle utilization; and
•product pricing.
To manage self-driving hardware costs, we must engineer cost-effective designs for our sensors, computers, and vehicles, achieve adequate scale, and freeze hardware specifications while enabling continued software improvements. In addition, we must continuously push initiatives to optimize supporting cost components such as vehicle and self-driving system maintenance, cloud storage, telecom data feed, facilities, cleaning, operations personnel costs, and useful life. This will require significant coordination with our third-party fleet partners and adequate cost management may not materialize as expected or at all, which would have material adverse effects on our business prospects.
Self-driving technology is a new product and the appropriate price points are still being determined. Additionally, increased competition may result in pricing pressure and reduced margins and may impede our ability to increase the revenue of our technology or cause us to lose market share, any of which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Unfavorable changes in any of these or other unit economics-related factors, many of which are beyond our control, could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
We are highly dependent on the services of our senior management team and, specifically, our Chief Executive Officer, and if we are not successful in retaining our senior management team and, in particular, our Chief Executive Officer, and in attracting or retaining other highly qualified personnel, we may not be able to successfully implement our business strategy.
Our success depends, in significant part, on the continued services of our senior management team, which has extensive experience in the self-driving industry. The loss of any one or more members of our senior management team, for any reason, including resignation or retirement, could impair our ability to execute our business strategy and could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In particular, we are highly dependent on Chris Urmson, our Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, who remains deeply involved in all aspects of our business, including product development. If Mr. Urmson ceased to be involved with Aurora, this would adversely affect our business because his loss could make it more difficult to, among other things, compete with other market participants, manage our R&D activities and retain existing partners or cultivate new ones. Negative public perception of, or negative news related to, Mr. Urmson may adversely affect our brand, relationship with partners or standing in the industry.
Our success similarly hinges on the ability to attract, motivate, develop and retain a sufficient number of other highly skilled personnel, including software, hardware, systems engineering, automotive, safety, operations, design, finance, marketing, and support personnel. Competition for qualified highly skilled personnel can be strong, and we can provide no assurance that we will be successful in attracting or retaining such personnel now or in the future. Employees may be more likely to leave us if the shares of our capital stock they own or the shares of our capital stock underlying their equity incentive awards have significantly reduced in value or the vested shares of our capital stock they own or vested shares of our capital stock underlying their equity incentive awards have significantly appreciated. A significant reduction in the value of our common stock may require us to grant a larger number of equity incentive awards in order to prevent employee departures and to attract new personnel. The issuance of additional shares upon settlement or exercise of those awards would result in dilution to the holders of our common stock and increase the number of shares eligible for resale in the public market, and may have a negative impact on our stock price.
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Many of our employees may receive significant proceeds from sales of our equity in the public markets once their applicable vesting restrictions are satisfied, which may reduce their motivation to continue to work for us. Further, any inability to recruit, develop and retain qualified employees may result in high employee turnover and may force us to pay significantly higher wages, which may harm our profitability.
Additionally, we do not carry key man insurance for any of our management executives, and the loss of any key employee or our inability to recruit, develop and retain these individuals as needed, could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Risks Related to Our Business Operations
Our business plans require a significant amount of capital. In addition, our future capital needs may require us to sell additional equity or debt securities that may dilute our stockholders.
The fact that we have a limited operating history means we have limited historical data on the demand for our products and services. As a result, our future capital requirements are uncertain and actual capital requirements may be different from those we currently anticipate. We expect to continue investing in research and development to improve our self-driving technology. We expect we will need to seek equity or debt financing to fund a portion of our future expenditures. Such financing might not be available to us in a timely manner, on terms that are acceptable, or at all.
Our ability to obtain the necessary financing to carry out our business plan is subject to a number of factors, including general market conditions and investor acceptance of our business model. These factors may make the timing, amount, terms and conditions of such financing unattractive or unavailable to us. If we are unable to raise sufficient funds, we will have to significantly reduce our spending, delay or cancel our planned activities, or substantially change our corporate structure.
We may experience difficulties in managing our growth and expanding our operations.
We expect to experience significant growth in the scope and nature of our operations. Our ability to manage our operations and future growth will require us to continue to improve our operational, financial and management controls, compliance programs and systems automation. We are currently in the process of strengthening our compliance programs, including in relation to export controls, privacy and cybersecurity and anti-corruption. We will also need to reduce our reliance on manual operations in the areas of billing and reporting and make certain other improvements to support our complex arrangements and the rules governing revenue and expense recognition for our future operations. We may not be able to implement improvements in an efficient or timely manner and may discover deficiencies in existing controls, programs, systems and procedures, which could have an adverse effect on the accuracy of our reporting, business relationships, reputation and financial results.
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Our operating and financial results projections that were previously provided rely in large part upon assumptions and analyses developed by us. If these assumptions or analyses prove to be incorrect, our actual results of operations may be materially different from projections that we previously filed and our estimates of certain financial metrics may prove inaccurate.
We use various estimates in formulating our business plans. We base our estimates upon a number of assumptions that are inherently subject to significant business and economic uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond our control. Our estimates therefore may prove inaccurate, causing the actual amount to differ from our estimates. These factors include, without limitation:
•assumptions around vehicle miles traveled (“VMT”);
•the degree of utilization achieved by our self-driving technology;
•the price our customers are willing to pay;
•the timing and breadth of our technology’s operating domain and product models;
•operational costs of our self-driving technology and their useful life;
•growth in core development and operating expenses;
•which elements of service are delivered by Aurora versus our partners, and associated impact on expenses and capital requirements;
•the extent to which our technology is successfully and efficiently operationalized by our fleet partners, and our market penetration more broadly;
•the timing of when our partners and end-customers adopt our technology on a commercial basis which could be delayed for regulatory, safety or reliability issues unrelated to our technology;
•the timing of future self-driving system hardware generations and vehicle platforms;
•competitive pricing pressures, including from established and future competitors;
•whether we can obtain sufficient capital to continue investing in core technology development and sustain and grow our business;
•the overall strength and stability of domestic and international markets, including, but not limited to trucking, passenger mobility, and local goods delivery; and
•other risk factors set forth in this Quarterly Report.
In particular, our total addressable market and opportunity estimates, growth forecasts, pricing, cost, and customer demand that have previously been provided are subject to significant uncertainty and are based on assumptions and estimates that may prove inaccurate. Previously announced projections, forecasts and estimates relating to the expected size and growth of the markets for self-driving technology may prove similarly imprecise. We are pursuing prospects in multiple markets that are undergoing rapid changes, including in technological and regulatory areas, and it is difficult to predict the timing and size of the opportunities.
Unfavorable changes in any of the above or other factors, including around the total addressable market and market opportunity, most of which are beyond our control, could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
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As part of growing our business, we have in the past and may in the future make acquisitions. If we fail to successfully select, execute or integrate our acquisitions, it could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations, and our stock price could decline.
From time to time, we may undertake acquisitions to add new products and technologies, acquire talent, form new strategic partnerships, or enter into new markets or geographies. In addition to possible stockholder approval, we may need approvals and licenses from relevant government authorities for such future acquisitions and to comply with any applicable laws and regulations, which could result in increased delay and costs, and may disrupt our business strategy if such approvals are ultimately denied. Furthermore, acquisitions and the subsequent integration of new assets, businesses, key personnel, partners and end-customers, vendors and suppliers require significant attention from our management and could result in a diversion of resources from our existing business, which in turn could have an adverse effect on our operations. Additionally, acquired assets or businesses may not generate the financial results we expect. Key personnel or large numbers of employees who join Aurora through acquisitions may decide to leave Aurora to work for other businesses or competitors of Aurora, thereby diminishing the value of our acquisitions. Acquisitions could result in the use of substantial amounts of cash, potentially dilutive issuances of equity securities, the occurrence of significant goodwill impairments, amortization expenses for other intangible assets and exposure to potential unknown liabilities of the acquired business. For example, in January 2021, Aurora acquired Uber’s self driving unit, Apparate, an acquisition for which certain of the risks outlined above were, and continue to be, present. Apparate has a history of financial losses, which have (and will continue to) lead to increased losses for Aurora (versus if Aurora had not acquired Apparate), and which have and will continue to require increased cash spending by Aurora. Additionally, the acquisition and integration processes create a risk that management and employees of Aurora become distracted. Finally, the costs of identifying and consummating acquisitions may be significant. Failure to successfully identify, complete, manage and integrate acquisitions could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations, and could cause our stock price to decline.
Our business is subject to the risks of earthquakes, fire, floods and other natural catastrophic events, global pandemics, and interruptions by man-made problems, such as terrorism. Material disruptions of our business or information systems resulting from these events could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
A significant natural disaster, such as an earthquake, fire, flood, hurricane or significant power outage or other similar events, such as infectious disease outbreaks or pandemic events, including the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. The COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath may have the effect of heightening many of the other risks described in this “Risk Factors” section, such as the demand for our products, our ability to achieve or maintain profitability and our ability to raise additional capital in the future. We further note we have several offices located in the San Francisco Bay Area, a region known for seismic activity. In addition, natural disasters, acts of terrorism or war could cause disruptions in our remaining operations, our or our partners’ businesses, our suppliers’ or the economy as a whole. We also rely on information technology systems to communicate among our workforce and with third parties. Any disruption to our communications, whether caused by a natural disaster or by man-made problems, such as power disruptions, could adversely affect our business. We do not have a formal disaster recovery plan or policy in place and do not currently require that our partners have such plans or policies in place. To the extent that any such disruptions result in development or commercialization delays or impede our partners’ and suppliers’ ability to timely deliver product components, or the deployment of our products, this could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
The spread of COVID-19 caused us to initially modify our business practices (including reducing employee travel, recommending that all non-essential personnel work from home and cancellation or reduction of physical participation in activities, meetings, events and conferences), and, though we now permit employee travel and have adopted a flexible return to office policy, we may take further actions as may be required by government authorities or that we determine are in the best interests of our employees, partners and end-customers, suppliers, and business partners. The COVID-19 pandemic could limit the ability of our partners, suppliers, and business partners to perform, including our ability to conduct on-road and track operations for development testing.
Any recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic impact may be slowed or reversed by a variety of factors, such as, new variants to the virus that may cause an increase in the number or severity of COVID-19 infections. In addition, even after the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided, we may continue to experience adverse impacts to our business as a result of its global economic impact. Further, many of the factors discussed under Risk Factors in this Quarterly Report are, and we anticipate will continue to be further, heightened or exacerbated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Aurora has implemented a voluntary return to office policy for its employees. However, even after the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided, we may continue to experience an adverse impact to our business as a result of its global economic impact, including any recession that has occurred or may occur in the future. We do not yet know the full extent of COVID-19’s impact on our business, our operations, or the global economy as a whole. However, the effects could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations, and we will continue to monitor the situation closely.
Interruption or failure of Amazon Web Services or other information technology and communications systems that we rely upon could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We currently rely on Amazon Web Services, or AWS, to host our technology and support our technology development. The availability and effectiveness of our services depend on the continued operation of AWS, information technology, and communications systems. Our systems will be vulnerable to damage, interruption or any other compromise as the result of, among others, physical theft, fire, terrorist attacks, natural disasters, power loss, war, telecommunications failures, viruses, denial or degradation of service attacks, ransomware, social engineering schemes, insider theft or misuse or other attempts to harm our systems. We utilize reputable third-party service providers or vendors for all of our data other than our source code, and these providers could also be vulnerable to harms similar to those that could damage our systems, including sabotage and intentional acts of vandalism causing potential disruptions. It may become increasingly difficult to maintain and improve our performance, especially during peak usage times, as we expand the usage of our platform. Some of our systems will not be fully redundant, and our disaster recovery planning cannot account for all eventualities. Any problems with our third-party cloud hosting providers could result in lengthy interruptions in our business.
We are subject to cybersecurity risks to operational systems, security systems, infrastructure, integrated software and partners and end-customers data processed by us or third-party vendors or suppliers and any material failure, weakness, interruption, cyber event, incident or breach of security could prevent us from effectively operating our business.
We are at risk for interruptions, outages and breaches of: operational systems, including business, financial, accounting, product development, data processing or production processes, owned by us or our third-party vendors or suppliers; facility security systems, owned by us or our third-party vendors or suppliers; in-product technology owned by us or our third-party vendors or suppliers; our integrated software; or partners or end-customers or driver data that we process or our third-party vendors or suppliers process on our behalf. Such cyber incidents could materially disrupt operational systems; result in loss of intellectual property, trade secrets or other proprietary or competitively sensitive information; compromise certain information of partners, end-customers, employees, suppliers, drivers or others; jeopardize the security of our facilities; or affect the performance of in-product technology. A cyber incident could be caused by disasters, insiders (through inadvertence or with malicious intent) or malicious third parties (including nation-states or nation-state supported actors) using sophisticated, targeted methods to circumvent firewalls, encryption and other security defenses, including hacking, fraud, trickery or other forms of deception. The techniques used by cyber attackers change frequently and may be difficult to detect for long periods of time. Although we maintain and continue to develop information technology measures designed to protect us against intellectual property theft, data breaches and other cyber incidents, including a formal incident response plan, such measures will require updates and improvements, and we cannot guarantee that such measures will be adequate to detect, prevent or mitigate cyber incidents. The implementation, maintenance, segregation and improvement of these systems requires significant management time, support and cost. Moreover, there are inherent risks associated with developing, improving, expanding and updating current systems, including the disruption of our data management, procurement, production execution, finance, supply chain and sales and service processes. These risks may affect our ability to manage our data and inventory, procure parts or supplies or produce, sell, deliver and service our solutions, adequately protect our intellectual property or achieve and maintain compliance with, or realize available benefits under, applicable laws, regulations and contracts. We cannot be sure that the systems upon which we rely, including those of our third-party vendors or suppliers, will be effectively implemented, maintained or expanded as planned. If we do not successfully implement, maintain or expand these systems as planned, our operations may be disrupted, our ability to accurately and timely report our financial results could be impaired, and deficiencies may arise in our internal control over financial reporting, which may impact our ability to certify our financial results. Moreover, our proprietary information or intellectual property could be compromised or misappropriated, and our reputation may be adversely affected. If these systems do not operate as we expect them to, we may be required to expend significant resources to make corrections or find alternative sources for performing these functions.
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A significant cyber incident could impact production capability, harm our reputation, cause us to breach our contracts with other parties or subject us to regulatory actions or litigation, any of which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, our insurance coverage for cyber-attacks may not be sufficient to cover all the losses we may experience as a result of a cyber incident.
Unauthorized control or manipulation of systems in autonomous vehicles may cause them to operate improperly or not at all, or compromise their safety and data security, which could result in loss of confidence in us and our products and harm our business.
There have been reports of vehicles being “hacked” to grant access to and operation of the vehicles to unauthorized persons. Aurora-powered vehicles contain complex IT systems and are designed with built-in data connectivity. We are implementing security measures intended to prevent unauthorized access to the information technology networks and systems installed in our vehicles. However, hackers or unauthorized third parties may attempt to gain unauthorized access to modify, alter, and use such networks and systems to gain control of, or to change, our vehicles’ functionality, user interface and performance characteristics, or to access data stored in or generated by our products. As techniques used to obtain unauthorized access to or sabotage systems change frequently and may not be known until launched against us or our third-party service providers, there can be no assurance that we will be able to anticipate, or implement adequate measures to protect against, these attacks. Any such security incidents could result in unexpected control of or changes to the vehicles’ functionality and safe operation and could result in legal claims or proceedings and negative publicity, which would negatively affect our brand and harm our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results.
Failures, or perceived failures, to comply with privacy, data protection, and information security requirements in the variety of jurisdictions in which we operate, or may operate, may adversely impact our business, and such legal requirements are evolving, uncertain and may require improvements in, or changes to, our policies and operations.
Our current and potential future operations and sales subject us to laws and regulations addressing privacy and the collection, use, storage, disclosure, transfer and protection of a variety of types of data. For example, the European Commission has adopted the General Data Protection Regulation and California enacted the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, both of which provide for potentially material penalties for non-compliance. We may also be subject to additional privacy regulations in the future, including the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (when it goes into effect in 2023) or the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (when it goes into effect in 2023). These regimes may, among other things, impose data security requirements, disclosure requirements, and restrictions on data collection, uses, and sharing that may impact our operations and the development of our business. While, generally, we do not have access to, collect, store, process, or share information collected by our solutions unless our partners choose to proactively provide such information to us, our products may evolve both to address potential partner requirements or to add new features and functionality that may change our privacy obligations. Therefore, the full impact of these privacy regimes on our business is rapidly evolving across jurisdictions and remains uncertain at this time.
We may also be affected by cyber-attacks and other means of gaining unauthorized access to our technology, systems, and data. For instance, cyber criminals, insiders or unauthorized third parties may target us or third parties with which we have business relationships to obtain data, or in a manner that disrupts our operations or compromises our products or the systems into which our products are integrated.
We are assessing the continually evolving privacy and data security regimes and measures we believe are appropriate in response. Since these data security regimes are evolving, uncertain and complex, especially for a global business like ours, we may need to update or enhance our compliance measures as our products, markets and end-customer demands further develop, and these updates or enhancements may require implementation costs. In addition, we may not be able to monitor and react to all developments in a timely manner. The compliance measures we do adopt may prove ineffective. Any failure, or perceived failure, by us to comply with current and future regulatory, partner or end-customer-driven privacy, data protection, and information security requirements, or to prevent or mitigate security breaches, cyber-attacks, or improper access to, use of, or disclosure of data, or any security issues or cyber-attacks affecting us, could result in significant liability, costs (including the costs of mitigation and recovery), and a material loss of revenue resulting from the adverse impact on our reputation and brand, loss of proprietary information and data, disruption to our business and relationships, and diminished ability to retain or attract partners and end-customers. Such events may result in governmental enforcement actions and prosecutions, private litigation, fines and penalties or adverse publicity, and could cause partners and end-customers to lose trust in us, which could have an adverse effect on our reputation and business.
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Our future insurance coverage may not be adequate to protect us from all business risks or may be prohibitively expensive.
We may be subject, in the ordinary course of business, to losses resulting from product liability, accidents, acts of God, and other claims against us, for which we may have no insurance coverage. Further, because we operate in a new and thus inherently risky industry, insurance policies may not be available to us on terms and rates that are acceptable to us or at all. In addition, as a general matter, the policies that we do have may include significant deductibles or self-insured retentions, and we cannot be certain that our future insurance coverage will be sufficient to cover all future losses or claims against us. A loss that is uninsured or which exceeds policy limits may require us to pay substantial amounts, which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Further, actions or inactions of others in our industry, through no fault of our own, may materially increase the cost of insurance and/or materially decrease the coverages available to us on commercially reasonable terms.
Any financial or economic crisis, or perceived threat of such a crisis, including a significant decrease in consumer confidence, could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
In recent years, the United States and global economies suffered dramatic downturns as the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a deterioration in the credit markets and related financial crisis as well as a variety of other factors including, among other things, extreme volatility in security prices, severely diminished liquidity and credit availability, ratings downgrades of certain investments and declining valuations of others. The United States and certain foreign governments have taken unprecedented actions in an attempt to address and rectify these extreme market and economic conditions by providing liquidity and stability to the financial markets. If the actions taken by these governments are not successful, the return of adverse economic conditions may negatively impact the demand for our technology and may negatively impact our ability to raise capital, if needed, on a timely basis and on acceptable terms or at all.
Our financial instruments, including warrants, are accounted for as liabilities and the changes in fair value could have a material effect on our financial results.
Included on our balance sheet as of September 30, 2022 contained elsewhere in this Quarterly Report are derivative liabilities related to embedded features contained within our public and private placement warrants as well as shares issued to the former sponsor of RTPY with price-based vesting criteria.
Accounting Standards Codification 815, Derivatives and Hedging (“ASC 815”), provides for the remeasurement of the fair value of such derivatives at each balance sheet date, with a resulting non-cash gain or loss related to the change in the fair value being recognized in earnings in the statement of operations. As a result of the recurring fair value measurement, our financial statements and results of operations may fluctuate quarterly, based on factors which are outside of our control. Due to the recurring fair value measurement, we expect that we will recognize non-cash gains or losses on these financial instruments each reporting period and that the amount of such gains or losses could be material. The impact of changes in fair value on earnings may have an adverse effect on the market price of our securities.
If we are unable to develop and maintain an effective system of internal control over financial reporting, we may not be able to accurately report our financial results in a timely manner, which may adversely affect investor confidence in us and materially and adversely affect our business and operating results.
Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with GAAP. Our management is likewise required, on a quarterly basis, to evaluate the effectiveness of our internal controls and to disclose any changes and material weaknesses identified through such evaluation in those internal controls.
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 and corrected on a timely basis.
Effective internal controls are necessary for us to provide reliable financial reports and prevent fraud, and a material weaknesses could result in us being unable to maintain compliance with securities law requirements regarding timely filing of periodic reports in addition to applicable stock exchange listing requirements, investors losing confidence in our financial reporting, our securities price declining or us facing litigation as a result of the foregoing.
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If we identify any material weaknesses in the future, any such identified material weakness could limit our ability to prevent or detect a misstatement of our accounts or disclosures that could result in a material misstatement of our annual or interim financial statements. In such case, we may be unable to maintain compliance with securities law requirements regarding timely filing of periodic reports in addition to applicable stock exchange listing requirements, investors may lose confidence in our financial reporting and our stock price may decline as a result. We cannot assure you that the measures we have taken to date, or any measures we may take in the future, will be sufficient to avoid potential future material weaknesses.
Unanticipated changes in effective tax rates, adverse outcomes resulting from examination of our income, changes in tax laws or regulations, changes in our ability to utilize our net operating loss, or other tax-related changes could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
We will be subject to income taxes in the United States and other jurisdictions, and our tax liabilities will be subject to the allocation of expenses in differing jurisdictions. Our future effective tax rates could be subject to volatility or adversely affected by a number of factors, including changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities; expected timing and amount of the release of any tax valuation allowances; tax effects of stock-based compensation; changes in tax laws, regulations or interpretations thereof; or lower than anticipated future earnings in jurisdictions where we have lower statutory tax rates and higher than anticipated future earnings in jurisdictions where we have higher statutory tax rates.
In addition, we may be subject to audits of our income, sales and other transaction taxes by taxing authorities. Outcomes from these audits could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
Our future effective tax rates could be affected by changes in the mix of earnings in countries with differing statutory tax rates, changes in the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities and changes in tax laws or their interpretation. In addition, we may be subject to income tax audits by various tax jurisdictions. Although we believe our income tax liabilities are reasonably estimated and accounted for in accordance with applicable laws and principles, an adverse resolution by one or more taxing authorities could have a material impact on the results of our operations.
In general, under Section 382 of the Code, a corporation that undergoes an “ownership change” is subject to limitations on its ability to use its pre-change net operating loss carryforwards, NOLs, to offset future taxable income. The limitations apply if a corporation undergoes an “ownership change,” which is generally defined as a greater than 50 percentage point change (by value) in its equity ownership by certain stockholders over a three-year period. If we have experienced an ownership change at any time since our incorporation, we may already be subject to limitations on our ability to utilize our existing NOLs and other tax attributes to offset taxable income or tax liability. In addition, future changes in our stock ownership, which may be outside of our control, may trigger an ownership change. Similar provisions of state tax law may also apply to limit our use of accumulated state tax attributes. As a result, even if we earn net taxable income in the future, our ability to use these or our pre-change NOL carryforwards and other tax attributes to offset such taxable income or tax liability may be subject to limitations, which could potentially result in increased future income tax liability to us.
There is also a risk that changes in law or regulatory changes made in response to the need for some jurisdictions to raise additional revenue to help counter the fiscal impact from the COVID-19 pandemic or for other unforeseen reasons, including suspensions on the use of net operating losses or tax credits, possibly with retroactive effect, may result in our existing net operating losses or tax credits expiring or otherwise being unavailable to offset future income tax liabilities. A temporary suspension of the use of certain net operating losses and tax credits has been enacted in California, and other states may enact suspensions as well.
Risks Related to Our Dependence on Third Parties
Our success is contingent on our ability to successfully maintain, manage, execute and expand on our existing partnerships and obtain new partnerships.
Our self-driving technology is integrated into the vehicles of our OEM partners, while logistics services partners, ride-sharing partners and fleet service partners can act as both a customer and an operator of Aurora-powered vehicles. While we are providing our self-driving technology to these partners, they are simultaneously providing their vehicles, fleet operational activities, and, in some cases, access to end-customers.
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In order for this business model to be successful, we will need to enter into definitive long-term contracts and commercial arrangements with partners such as PACCAR, Uber, Toyota and Volvo, which expand upon the current agreements and historic working relationships we have in place. In the event such contracts do not materialize, we may not be able to implement our business strategy in the timeframe anticipated, or at all. If we are unable to enter into definitive agreements or are only able to do so on terms that are unfavorable to us, we may not be able to timely identify adequate strategic relationship opportunities, or form strategic relationships, and consequently, we may not be able to fully carry out our business plans. Accordingly, investors should not place undue reliance on our statements about our development plans and partnerships or their feasibility in the timeframe anticipated, or at all.
Partners and end-customers may be less likely to purchase our products if they are not convinced that our business will succeed or that our service, technology, and other operations will continue in the long term. Similarly, suppliers and other third parties will be less likely to invest time and resources in developing business relationships with us if they are not convinced that our business will succeed. Accordingly, in order to build and maintain our business, we must maintain confidence among partners, end-customers, suppliers, analysts, ratings agencies and other parties in our products, long-term financial viability and business prospects. Maintaining such confidence may be particularly complicated by certain factors including those that are largely outside of our control, such as our limited operating history, end-customer unfamiliarity with our technology, any delays in scaling production, delivery and service operations to meet demand, competition and uncertainty regarding the future of self-driving vehicles or our other services compared with market expectations.
We are dependent on our suppliers, some of which are single or limited source suppliers, and the inability of these suppliers to produce and deliver necessary and industrialized components at prices and volumes and on terms acceptable to us could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
While we plan to obtain components from multiple sources whenever desirable, some of the components used in our hardware and technology will be purchased from a single supplier. We refer to these component suppliers as our single source suppliers. These components are susceptible to supply shortages, long lead times for components, and supply changes, any of which could disrupt our supply chain and could delay commercialization of our products to users. For example, the Aurora Driver relies on single source suppliers for several components including GPU microchips which we use for machine learning inference, vehicle gateway electronic control units, and automotive radar sensors.
We are reliant on third-party suppliers to design, develop, industrialize and manufacture components for us. In order for these suppliers to undertake the investment needed to produce these components, they may require us to commit to terms, pricing or purchase volumes that are not acceptable to us.
While we believe that we may be able to establish alternate supply relationships and can obtain or engineer replacement components for our single source and other components, we may be unable to do so in the short term (or at all) at prices or quality levels and/or on terms that are favorable to us and we may experience significant delays while re-engineering our system to accept any replacement parts.
Manufacturing in collaboration with partners is subject to risks.
Our business model relies on outsourced manufacturing of vehicles and will include outsourced manufacturing of our self-driving system hardware and vehicle integration. The cost of tooling a manufacturing facility with a collaboration partner is high, but the exact dollar value will not be known until we enter into specific manufacturing agreements. Collaboration with third parties to manufacture vehicles and self-driving system hardware is subject to risks that are outside of our control. We have in the past, and could in the future, experience delays in development and production when and if our partners do not meet agreed upon timelines or experience capacity constraints. There is a risk of potential disputes with partners, which could stop or slow vehicle production, and we could be affected by adverse publicity related to our partners, whether or not such publicity is related to such third parties’ collaboration with us. In addition, we cannot guarantee that our suppliers will not deviate from agreed-upon quality standards.
We may be unable to enter into agreements with manufacturers on terms and conditions acceptable to us and therefore we may need to contract with other third parties or significantly add to our own production capacity. We may not be able to engage other third parties or establish or expand our own production capacity to meet our needs on acceptable terms, or at all. The expense and time required to adequately complete any transition may be greater than anticipated. Any of the foregoing could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
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Risks Related to Our Legal and Regulatory Environment
Burdensome regulations, inconsistent regulations, or a failure to receive regulatory approvals of our technology could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operation.
There has been relatively little mandatory federal government regulation of the self-driving industry to date. Currently, there are no Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards that relate to the performance of self-driving technology. While our team includes nationally recognized safety experts and we have built organizational, operational, and safety processes to ensure that the performance of our technology meets rigorous standards, there can be no assurance that these measures will meet future regulatory requirements enacted by government bodies nor that future regulatory requirements will not inherently limit the operation and commercialization of self-driving technology. In some jurisdictions, we could be required to present our own safety justification and evidence base, and in other areas it is possible that we may be required to pass specific self-driving safety tests. We have not yet tested our technology to the full extent possible, in all conditions under which we anticipate operations to occur. The failure to pass these safety tests or receive appropriate regulatory approvals for commercialization would adversely impact our ability to generate revenue at the rate we anticipate.
It is also possible that future self-driving regulations are not standardized, and our technology becomes subject to differing regulations across jurisdictions (e.g. federal, state, local, and international). For example, in Europe, certain vehicle safety regulations apply to automated braking and steering systems, and certain treaties also restrict the legality of certain higher levels of automation, while certain U.S. states have legal restrictions on automation, and many other states are considering them. Such a regulatory patchwork could hinder the commercial deployment of our technology and have adverse effects on our business prospects and financial condition.
We are also subject to laws and regulations that commonly apply to e-commerce businesses, such as those related to privacy and personal information, tax and consumer protection. These laws and regulations vary from one jurisdiction to another and future legislative and regulatory action, court decisions or other governmental action, which may be affected by, among other things, political pressures, attitudes and climates, as well as personal biases, may have a material impact on our operations and financial results.
We are subject to governmental export and import control laws and regulations. Our failure to comply with these laws and regulations could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
Our products and solutions are subject to export control and import laws and regulations, including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations, U.S. Customs regulations and various economic and trade sanctions regulations administered by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls. U.S. export control laws and regulations and economic sanctions prohibit the shipment of certain products and services to U.S. embargoed or sanctioned countries, governments and persons. In addition, complying with export control and sanctions regulations for a particular geography may be time-consuming and result in the delay or loss of revenue opportunities. Exports of our products and technology must be made in compliance with these laws and regulations. If we fail to comply with these 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, fines, which may be imposed on us and responsible employees or managers and, in extreme cases, the incarceration of responsible employees or managers.
We may become involved in legal and regulatory proceedings and commercial or contractual disputes, which could have an adverse effect on our profitability and consolidated financial position.
We may be, from time to time, involved in litigation, regulatory proceedings and commercial or contractual disputes that may be significant. These matters may include, without limitation, disputes with our suppliers and partners, intellectual property claims, stockholder litigation, government investigations, class action lawsuits, personal injury claims, environmental issues, customs and value-added tax disputes and employment and tax issues. In addition, we have in the past and could face in the future a variety of labor and employment claims against us, which could include but is not limited to general discrimination, wage and hour, privacy, ERISA or disability claims. In such matters, government agencies or private parties may seek to recover from us very large, indeterminate amounts in penalties or monetary damages (including, in some cases, treble or punitive damages) or seek to limit our operations in some way. These types of disputes could require significant management time and attention or could involve substantial legal liability, adverse regulatory outcomes, and/or substantial expenses to defend. Often these proceedings raise complex factual and legal issues and create risks and uncertainties. No assurances can be given that any proceedings and claims will not have a material and adverse impact on our business, financial condition or results of operations or that our established reserves or our available insurance will mitigate this impact.
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Changes to global political, regulatory and economic conditions or foreign laws and policies, or interpretation of existing foreign laws and policies, could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
Changes in global political, regulatory and economic conditions or in laws and policies governing foreign trade, research, manufacturing, development, technology, and investment in the territories or countries where we currently purchase our components, sell our products or conduct our business could adversely affect our business. The U.S. has recently instituted or proposed changes in trade policies that include the negotiation or termination of trade agreements, the imposition of higher tariffs on imports into the U.S., economic sanctions on individuals, corporations or countries, and other government regulations affecting trade between the U.S. and other countries where we conduct our business. A number of other nations have proposed or instituted similar measures directed at trade with the United States in response. As a result of these developments, there may be greater restrictions and economic disincentives on international trade that could adversely affect our business. Additionally, certain existing and future foreign political, regulatory and economic conditions may make it impractical or impossible to launch in certain markets, may delay our launch in certain markets, or may impose onerous conditions to launch in such markets (e.g., requiring a local partner and/or the disclosure of sensitive intellectual property assets). It may be time-consuming and expensive for us to alter our business operations to adapt to or comply with any such changes, and any failure to do so could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We are subject to, and must remain in compliance with, numerous laws and governmental regulations concerning the manufacturing, use, distribution and sale of our products. Some of our partners also require that we comply with their own unique requirements relating to these matters.
We develop and plan to sell technology that contains electronic components, and such components may be subject to or may contain materials that are subject to government regulation in both the locations where manufacture and assembly of our products takes place, as well as the locations where we sell our products. This is a complex process which requires continual monitoring of regulations to ensure that we and our suppliers are in compliance with existing regulations in each market where we operate and where we intend to operate. If there is an unanticipated new regulation that significantly impacts our use and sourcing of various components or requires more expensive components, that regulation could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations. If we fail to adhere to new regulations or fail to continually monitor the updates, we may be subject to litigation, loss of partners or negative publicity and could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We are subject to environmental regulation and may incur substantial costs.
We are subject to federal, state, local and foreign laws, regulations and ordinances relating to the protection of the environment, including those relating to emissions to the air, discharges to surface and subsurface waters, safe drinking water, greenhouse gases and the management of hazardous substances, oils and waste materials. Federal, state and local laws and regulations relating to the protection of the environment may require the current or previous owner or operator of real estate to investigate and remediate hazardous or toxic substances or petroleum product releases at or from the property. Under federal law, generators of waste materials, and current and former owners or operators of facilities, can be subject to liability for investigation and remediation costs at locations that have been identified as requiring response actions. Compliance with environmental laws and regulations can require significant expenditures. In addition, we could incur costs to comply with such current or future laws and regulations, the violation of which could lead to substantial fines and penalties.
We may have to pay governmental entities or third parties for property damage and for investigation and remediation costs that they incurred in connection with any contamination at our current and former properties without regard to whether we knew of or caused the presence of the contaminants. Liability under these laws may be strict, joint and several, meaning that we could be liable for the costs of cleaning up environmental contamination regardless of fault or the amount of waste directly attributable to us. Even if more than one person may have been responsible for the contamination, each person covered by these environmental laws may be held responsible for all of the clean-up costs incurred. Environmental liabilities could arise and have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and performance. We do not believe, however, that pending environmental regulatory developments in this area will have a material effect on our capital expenditures or otherwise materially adversely affect its operations, operating costs, or competitive position.
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We are subject to anti-corruption, anti-bribery, anti-money laundering, financial and economic sanctions and similar laws, and non-compliance with such laws can subject us to administrative, civil and criminal fines and penalties, collateral consequences, remedial measures and legal expenses, all of which could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations and also our reputation.
We are subject to anti-corruption, anti-bribery, anti-money laundering, financial and economic sanctions and similar laws and regulations in various jurisdictions in which we conduct or in the future may conduct activities, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (the “FCPA”), the U.K. Bribery Act 2010, and other anti-corruption laws and regulations. The FCPA and the U.K. Bribery Act 2010 prohibit us and our officers, directors, employees and business partners acting on our behalf, including agents, from corruptly offering, promising, authorizing or providing anything of value to a “foreign official” for the purposes of influencing official decisions or obtaining or retaining business or otherwise obtaining favorable treatment. The FCPA also requires companies to make and keep books, records and accounts that accurately reflect transactions and dispositions of assets and to maintain a system of adequate internal accounting controls. The U.K. Bribery Act 2010 also prohibits non-governmental “commercial” bribery and soliciting or accepting bribes. A violation of these laws or regulations could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations and also our reputation. Our policies and procedures designed to ensure compliance with these regulations may not be sufficient and our directors, officers, employees, representatives, consultants, agents, and business partners could engage in improper conduct for which we may be held responsible.
Non-compliance with anti-corruption, anti-bribery, anti-money laundering or financial and economic sanctions laws could subject us to whistleblower complaints, adverse media coverage, investigations, and severe administrative, civil and criminal sanctions, collateral consequences, remedial measures and legal expenses, all of which could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations and also our reputation. In addition, changes in economic sanctions laws in the future could adversely impact our business and investments in our securities.
Our business may be adversely affected if our lidar technology fails to comply with the regulatory requirements under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic ACT or otherwise by the FDA.
Our lidar technology is subject to the Electronic Product Radiation Control Provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, as electronic product radiation includes laser technology. Regulations governing these products are intended to protect the public from hazardous or unnecessary exposure and are enforced by the FDA. Manufacturers are required to certify in product labeling and reports to the FDA that their products comply with applicable performance standards as well as maintain manufacturing, testing, and distribution records for their products. Failure to comply with these requirements could result in enforcement action by the FDA, which could require us to cease distribution of our products, recall or remediate products already distributed to partners or end-customers, or subject us to FDA enforcement.
We may be subject to product liability that could result in significant direct or indirect costs, which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our self-driving technology presents the risk of significant injury, including fatalities. We may be subject to claims if our technology is involved in an accident and persons are injured or purport to be injured. The occurrence of any errors or defects in our products could make us liable for damages and legal claims. In addition, we could incur significant costs to correct such issues, potentially including product recalls. Any negative publicity related to the perceived quality of our technology could affect our brand image, partner and end-customer demand, and could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Also, liability claims may result in litigation, including class actions, the occurrence of which could be costly, lengthy and distracting and could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Any product recall of ours or our partners in the future may result in adverse publicity, damage our brand and could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In the future, we may voluntarily or involuntarily initiate a recall if any vehicles powered by our self-driving technology prove to be defective or non-compliant with applicable federal motor vehicle safety standards. Such recalls involve significant expense and diversion of management attention and other resources, which could materially and adversely affect our brand image in our target markets, as well as our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
Once we commercialize our technology, we may be required to obtain specialized insurance, which may not be available to the capacity or on the terms that we require to achieve the economics we expect. Further, any insurance that we carry may not be sufficient or it may not apply to all situations. Similarly, our partners could be subjected to claims as a result of such accidents and bring legal claims against us to attempt to hold us liable. Any of these events could materially and adversely affect our brand, relationships with partners, business, financial condition or results of operations.
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Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property
Despite the actions we are taking to defend and protect our intellectual property, we may not be able to adequately protect or enforce our intellectual property rights or prevent unauthorized parties from copying or reverse engineering our solutions. Our efforts to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights and prevent third parties from violating our rights may be costly.
The success of our products and our business depends in part on our ability to obtain patents and other intellectual property rights and maintain adequate legal protection for our products in the United States and other international jurisdictions. We rely on a combination of patent, service mark, trademark and trade secret laws, as well as confidentiality procedures and contractual restrictions, to establish and protect our proprietary rights, all of which provide only limited protection.
We cannot assure you that any patents will be issued with respect to our currently pending patent applications or that any trademarks will be registered with respect to our currently pending applications in a manner that gives us adequate defensive protection or competitive advantages, if at all, or that any patents issued to us or any trademarks registered by us will not be challenged, invalidated or circumvented. We have filed for patents and trademarks in the United States and in certain international jurisdictions, but such protections may not be available in all countries in which we operate or in which we seek to enforce our intellectual property rights, or may be difficult to enforce in practice. Our currently-issued and applied-for patent and trademark registrations and applications, and any future patents and trademarks that may be issued, registered or applied for, as applicable, may not provide sufficiently broad protection or may not prove to be enforceable in actions against alleged infringers. We also cannot be certain that the steps we have taken will prevent unauthorized use of our technology or the reverse engineering of our technology. Moreover, others may independently develop technologies that are competitive to us or infringe our intellectual property.
The protection against unauthorized use of our intellectual property, products and other proprietary rights is expensive and difficult, particularly internationally. We believe that our patents are foundational in the area of self-driving technology. Unauthorized parties may attempt to copy or reverse engineer our technology or certain aspects of our solutions that we consider proprietary. Litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce or defend our intellectual property rights, to prevent unauthorized parties from copying or reverse engineering our solutions, to determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others or to block the importation of infringing products into the United States.
Any such litigation, whether initiated by us or a third party, could result in substantial costs and diversion of management resources, either of which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Even if we obtain favorable outcomes in litigation, we may not be able to obtain adequate remedies, especially in the context of unauthorized parties copying or reverse engineering our solutions.
Further, many of our current and potential competitors have the ability to dedicate substantially greater resources to defending intellectual property infringement claims and to enforcing their intellectual property rights than we have. Attempts to enforce our rights against third parties could also provoke these third parties to assert their own intellectual property or other rights against us or result in a holding that invalidates or narrows the scope of our rights, in whole or in part. Effective patent, trademark, service mark, copyright and trade secret protection may not be available in every country in which our products are available, and competitors based in other countries may sell infringing products in one or more markets. Failure to adequately protect our intellectual property rights could result in our competitors offering similar products, potentially resulting in the loss of some of our competitive advantage and a decrease in our revenue, which could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
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Third-party claims that we are infringing intellectual property, whether successful or not, could subject us to costly and time-consuming litigation or expensive licenses, and our business could be adversely affected.
Although we hold key patents related to our products, a number of companies, both within and outside of the self-driving vehicle industry, hold other patents covering aspects of self-driving technology. In addition to these patents, participants in this industry typically also protect their technology, especially embedded software, through copyrights and trade secrets. In recent years, there has been significant litigation globally involving patents and other intellectual property rights. We have received, and in the future may receive, inquiries from other intellectual property holders and may become subject to claims that we infringe their intellectual property rights, particularly as we expand our presence in the market, expand to new use cases and face increasing competition. We are also party to certain agreements that may limit our trademark rights in certain jurisdictions; while we believe these agreements are unlikely to have a significant impact on our business as currently conducted, our ability to use our existing trademarks in new business lines in the future may be limited. In addition, parties may claim that the names and branding of our products infringe their trademark rights in certain countries or territories. Although we intend to vigorously defend our intellectual property rights, if such a claim were to prevail, we may have to change the names and branding of our products in the affected territories and we could incur other costs.
We currently have a number of agreements in effect pursuant to which we have agreed to defend, indemnify and hold harmless our partners, suppliers, and channel partners and other partners from damages and costs which may arise from the infringement by our products of third-party patents or other intellectual property rights. The scope of these indemnity obligations varies, but may, in some instances, include indemnification for damages and expenses, including attorneys’ fees. We do not carry insurance to cover intellectual property infringement claims. A claim that our products infringe a third party’s intellectual property rights, even if untrue, could adversely affect our relationships with our partners, may deter future partners from purchasing our products and could expose us to costly litigation and settlement expenses. Even if we are not a party to any litigation between a partner and a third party relating to infringement by our products, an adverse outcome in any such litigation could make it more difficult for us to defend our products against intellectual property infringement claims in any subsequent litigation in which we are a named party. Any of these results could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our defense of intellectual property rights claims brought against us or our partners, suppliers and channel partners, with or without merit, could be time-consuming, expensive to litigate or settle, divert management resources and attention and force us to acquire intellectual property rights and licenses, which may involve substantial royalty or other payments and may not be available on acceptable terms or at all. Further, a party making such a claim, if successful, could secure a judgment that requires us to pay substantial damages or obtain an injunction. An adverse determination also could invalidate our intellectual property rights and adversely affect our ability to offer our products to our partners and may require that we procure or develop substitute products that do not infringe, which could require significant effort and expense. Any of these events could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We may need to defend ourselves against intellectual property infringement claims, which may be time-consuming and could cause us to incur substantial costs.
Companies, organizations or individuals, including our current and future competitors, may hold or obtain patents, trademarks or other proprietary rights that would prevent, limit or interfere with our ability to make, use, develop or sell our products, which could make it more difficult for us to operate our business. From time to time, we may receive inquiries from holders of patents or trademarks inquiring whether we are infringing their proprietary rights and/or seek court declarations that they do not infringe upon our intellectual property rights. Companies holding patents or other intellectual property rights relating to self-driving technology (including sensors, hardware and software for self-driving vehicles) or other related technology may bring suits alleging infringement of such rights or otherwise asserting their rights and seeking licenses. In addition, if we are determined to have infringed upon a third party’s intellectual property rights, we may be required to do one or more of the following:
•cease selling, incorporating or using products that incorporate the challenged intellectual property;
•pay substantial damages;
•obtain a license from the holder of the infringed intellectual property right, which license may not be available on reasonable terms or at all; or
•redesign our technology.
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A successful claim of infringement against us and our failure or inability to obtain a license to the infringed technology could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, any litigation or claims, whether or not valid, could result in substantial costs and diversion of resources and management’s attention.
We also hold licenses to intellectual property from third parties, including inbound licenses provided in connection with commercial and other arrangements, and we may face claims that our use of this intellectual property infringes the rights of others. In such cases, we may seek indemnification from our licensors under our license contracts with them. However, our rights to indemnification may be unavailable or insufficient to cover our costs and losses, depending on our use of the technology, whether we choose to retain control over conduct of the litigation, and other factors.
We rely on licenses from third parties for intellectual property that is critical to our business, and we would lose the rights to use such intellectual property if those agreements were terminated or not renewed.
We expect that the long-term contracts and commercial arrangements that we have and intend to enter into with partners may include licenses. We rely on these licenses from our partners for certain intellectual property that is or may become critical to our business. Termination of our current or future partner agreements could cause us to have to negotiate new or restated agreements with less favorable terms or cause us to lose our rights under the original agreements.
In the case of a loss of technology used in our systems, we may not be able to continue to manufacture certain components for our product or for our operations or may experience disruption to our manufacturing processes as we test and re-qualify any potential replacement technology. Even if we retain the licenses, the licenses may not be exclusive with respect to such component design or technologies, which could aid our competitors and have a negative impact on our business.
Our intellectual property applications for registration may not issue or be registered, which may have a material adverse effect on our ability to prevent others from commercially exploiting products similar to ours.
We cannot be certain that we are the first inventor of the subject matter to which we have filed a particular patent application, or if we are the first party to file such a patent application. If another party has filed a patent application to the same subject matter as we have, we may not be entitled to the protection sought by the patent application. We also cannot be certain whether the claims included in a patent application will ultimately be allowed in the applicable issued patent. Further, the scope of protection of issued patent claims is often difficult to determine. As a result, we cannot be certain that the patent applications that we file will issue, or that our issued patents will afford protection against competitors with similar technology. In addition, our competitors may design around our issued patents, which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
As our patents may expire and may not be extended, our patent applications may not be granted and our patent rights may be contested, circumvented, invalidated or limited in scope. In particular, we may not be able to prevent others from developing or exploiting competing technologies, which could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
We cannot assure you that we will be granted patents pursuant to our pending applications. Even if our patent applications succeed and we are issued patents in accordance with them, these patents may still be contested, circumvented or invalidated in the future. In addition, the rights granted under any issued patents may not provide us with meaningful protection or competitive advantages. The claims under any patents that issue from our patent applications may not be broad enough to prevent others from developing technologies that are similar or that achieve results similar to ours. The intellectual property rights of others could also bar us from licensing and exploiting any patents that issue from our pending applications. Numerous patents and pending patent applications owned by others exist in the fields in which we have developed and are developing our technology. These patents and patent applications might have priority over our patent applications and could subject our patent applications to invalidation. Finally, in addition to those who may claim priority, any of our existing or pending patents may also be challenged by others on the basis that they are otherwise invalid or unenforceable.
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In addition to patented technology, we rely on our unpatented proprietary technology, trade secrets, processes and
know-how.
We rely on proprietary information (such as trade secrets, know-how and confidential information) to protect intellectual property that may not be patentable or subject to copyright, trademark, trade dress or service mark protection, or that we believe is best protected by means that do not require public disclosure. We generally seek to protect this proprietary information by entering into confidentiality agreements, or consulting services or employment agreements that contain non-disclosure and non-use provisions with our employees, consultants, contractors and third parties. However, we may fail to enter into the necessary agreements, and even if entered into, these agreements may be breached or may otherwise fail to prevent disclosure, third-party infringement or misappropriation of our proprietary information, may be limited as to their term and may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of unauthorized disclosure or use of proprietary information. Trade secrets or confidential information may also be willfully or unintentionally disclosed, including by employees, who may leave our company and join our competitors. We have limited control over the protection of trade secrets used by our current or future manufacturing partners and suppliers and could lose future trade secret protection if any unauthorized disclosure of such information occurs. In addition, our proprietary information may otherwise become known or be independently developed by our competitors or other third parties. To the extent that our employees, consultants, contractors, advisors and other third parties use intellectual property owned by others in their work for us, disputes may arise as to the rights in related or resulting know-how and inventions. Costly and time-consuming litigation could be necessary to enforce and determine the scope of our proprietary rights, and failure to obtain or maintain protection for our proprietary information could adversely affect our competitive business position. Furthermore, laws regarding trade secret rights in certain markets where we operate may afford little or no protection to our trade secrets.
We also rely on physical and electronic security measures to protect our proprietary information, but we cannot provide assurance that these security measures will not be breached or provide adequate protection for our property or any proprietary information that we hold. There is a risk that third parties may obtain and improperly utilize our proprietary information to our competitive disadvantage. We may not be able to detect or prevent the unauthorized use of such information or take appropriate and timely steps to enforce our intellectual property rights.
We may be subject to damages resulting from claims that we or our employees have wrongfully used or disclosed alleged trade secrets of our employees’ former employers.
We may be subject to claims that we or our employees have inadvertently or otherwise used or disclosed trade secrets or other proprietary information of an employee’s former employers. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these claims. If we fail in defending such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel. A loss of key personnel or their work product could hamper or prevent our ability to commercialize our products, which could severely harm our business. Even if we are successful in defending against these claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and demands on management resources.
Our software contains third-party open-source software components, and failure to comply with the terms of the underlying open-source software licenses could restrict our ability to sell our products or give rise to disclosure obligations of proprietary software.
Our software contains components that are licensed under so-called “open source,” “free” or other similar licenses. Open source software is made available to the general public on an “as-is” basis under the terms of a non-negotiable license. Certain open source licenses may give rise to obligations to disclose or license our source code or other intellectual property rights if such open source software is integrated with our proprietary software or distributed in certain ways. We currently combine our proprietary software with open source software, but not in a manner that we believe requires the release of the source code of our proprietary software to the public. If we combine or distribute our proprietary software with open source software in a certain manner in the future, we could be required to release the source code to our proprietary software as open source software, or could be required to cease using the relevant open source software which might be costly to replace. Open source licensors also generally do not provide warranties or other contractual protections regarding infringement claims or the quality of the code. In addition, if the license terms for the open source software that we use change, we may be forced to re-engineer our software, incur additional costs or discontinue the use of certain offerings if re-engineering could not be accomplished in a timely manner. Although we monitor our use of open source software to avoid subjecting our offerings to unintended conditions, there is a risk that these licenses could be construed in a way that could impose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to commercialize our offerings. We cannot guarantee that we have incorporated open source software in our software in a manner that will not subject us to liability or in a manner that is consistent with our current policies and procedures.
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Risks Related to Ownership of Our Securities
We have and will continue to incur significant increased expenses and administrative burdens as a public company, which could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
We face increased legal, accounting, administrative and other costs and expenses as a public company that we did not incur as a private company. The Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), Sarbanes-Oxley Act, including the requirements of Section 404, as well as rules and regulations subsequently implemented by the SEC, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 and the rules and regulations promulgated and to be promulgated thereunder, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and the securities exchanges, impose additional reporting and other obligations on public companies. Compliance with public company requirements will increase costs and make certain activities more time-consuming. A number of those requirements require us to carry out activities Aurora has not done previously. For example, we created new board committees and have adopted new internal controls and disclosure controls and procedures. In addition, expenses associated with SEC reporting requirements will be incurred. Furthermore, if any issues in complying with those requirements are identified (for example, if the auditors identify a material weakness or significant deficiency in the internal control over financial reporting), we could incur additional costs rectifying those issues, and the existence of those issues could adversely affect our reputation or investor perceptions of it. In addition, we have obtained director and officer liability insurance. Risks associated with our status as a public company may make it more difficult to attract and retain qualified persons to serve on our Board or as executive officers. The additional reporting and other obligations imposed by these rules and regulations increase legal and financial compliance costs and the costs of related legal, accounting and administrative activities. These increased costs will require us to divert a significant amount of money that could otherwise be used to expand the business and achieve strategic objectives. Advocacy efforts by stockholders and third parties may also prompt additional changes in governance and reporting requirements, which could further increase costs.
Our management team has limited experience in operating a public company.
Our executive officers have limited experience in the management of a publicly traded company. Our management team may not successfully or effectively manage our continuing transition to a public company that will be subject to significant regulatory oversight and reporting obligations under federal securities laws. Their limited experience in dealing with the increasingly complex laws pertaining to public companies could be a significant disadvantage in that it is likely that an increasing amount of their time may be devoted to these activities which will result in less time being devoted to the management and growth of the Company. We may not have adequate personnel with the appropriate level of knowledge, experience, and training in the accounting policies, practices or internal controls over financial reporting required of public companies in the United States. The development and implementation of the standards and controls necessary for the Company to achieve the level of accounting standards required of a public company in the United States may require costs greater than expected. It is possible that we will be required to expand our employee base and hire additional employees to support our operations as a public company which will increase our operating costs in future periods.
The terms of our public warrants may be amended in a manner adverse to a holder if holders of at least 50% of the then outstanding public warrants approve of such amendment.
We issued warrants to acquire shares of our common stock in connection with our initial public offering in March 2021. The warrants were issued in registered form under the Warrant Agreement, between us and Continental Stock Transfer & Trust Company, as warrant agent, which was subsequently amended in connection with the appointment of American Stock Transfer & Trust Company as warrant agent. The Warrant Agreement provides that the terms of the warrants may be amended without the consent of any holder to cure any ambiguity or correct any defective provision, but requires the approval by the holders of at least 50% of the then outstanding public warrants to make any change that adversely affects the interests of the registered holders of public warrants. Accordingly, we may amend the terms of the public warrants in a manner adverse to a holder if holders of at least 50% of the then outstanding public warrants approve of such amendment. Although our ability to amend the terms of the public warrants with the consent of at least 50% of the then outstanding public warrants is unlimited, examples of such amendments could be amendments to, among other things, increase the exercise price of the warrants, shorten the exercise period or decrease the number of shares of our Class A common stock purchasable upon exercise of a warrant.
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Failure to timely and effectively build our accounting systems to effectively implement controls and procedures required by Section 404(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act could have a material adverse effect on our business.
As a public company, we are required to provide management’s attestation on internal controls. The standards required for a public company under Section 404(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act are significantly more stringent than those required of a private company. Management may not be able to effectively and timely implement controls and procedures that adequately respond to the increased regulatory compliance and reporting requirements that now apply to us. If we are not able to implement the additional requirements of Section 404(a) in a timely manner or with adequate compliance, we may not be able to assess whether our internal controls over financial reporting are effective, which may subject us to adverse regulatory consequences and could harm investor confidence and the market price of our securities.
To manage the expected growth of our operations and increasing complexity, we will need to improve our operational and financial systems, procedures, and controls and continue to increase systems automation to reduce reliance on manual operations. Any inability to do so will affect our reporting. Our current and planned systems, procedures and controls may not be adequate to support our complex arrangements and the rules governing revenue and expense recognition for our future operations and expected growth. Delays or problems associated with any improvement or expansion of our operational and financial systems and controls could adversely affect our relationships with our partners, cause harm to our reputation and brand and could also result in errors in our financial and other reporting.
We are an emerging growth company within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), and if we take advantage of certain exemptions from disclosure requirements available to emerging growth companies, this could make our securities less attractive to investors and may make it more difficult to compare our performance with other public companies.
We are an “emerging growth company” within the meaning of the Securities Act, as modified by the JOBS Act, and may take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not emerging growth companies for as long as we continue to be an emerging growth company, including, but not limited to, not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements, and exemptions from the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation and shareholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. As a result, our shareholders may not have access to certain information they may deem important. We will remain an emerging growth company until the earliest of (i) the day we are deemed to be a large accelerated filer, which, in addition to certain other criteria, means the market value of our common equity that is held by non-affiliates exceeds $700 million as of the end of the prior fiscal year’s second fiscal quarter, (ii) the last day of the fiscal year in which we have total annual gross revenue of $1.07 billion or more during such fiscal year, (iii) the date on which we have issued more than $1 billion in non-convertible debt in the prior three-year period and (iv) December 31, 2026. Investors may find our securities less attractive because we will rely on these exemptions. If some investors find our securities less attractive as a result of our reliance on these exemptions, the trading prices of our securities may be lower than they otherwise would be, there may be a less active trading market for our securities and the trading prices of our securities may be more volatile.
In addition, Section 107 of the JOBS Act also provides that an emerging growth company can take advantage of the exemption from complying with new or revised accounting standards provided in Section 7(a)(2)(B) of the Securities Act as long as we are an emerging growth company. An emerging growth company can therefore delay the adoption of certain accounting standards until those standards would otherwise apply to private companies. We have elected not to opt out of such an extended transition period and, therefore, we may not be subject to the same new or revised accounting standards as other public companies that are not emerging growth companies. This may make comparison of our financial statements with another public company which is neither an emerging growth company nor an emerging growth company which has opted out of using the extended transition period difficult or impossible because of the potential differences in accounting standards used.
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Our bylaws (the “Bylaws”) designate a state or federal court located within the State of Delaware and the federal district courts of the United States as the exclusive forum for substantially all disputes between us and our stockholders, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to choose the judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers or employees.
Our Bylaws provide that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, to the fullest extent permitted by law, the sole and exclusive forum for (i) any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf, (ii) any action asserting a claim of breach of a fiduciary duty owed by any of our directors, officers or other employees to us or our stockholders, (iii) any action arising pursuant to any provision of the Delaware General Corporation Law, our certificate of incorporation (the “Certificate of Incorporation”) or our Bylaws, or (iv) any other action asserting a claim that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine shall be the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware (or, if the Court of Chancery does not have jurisdiction, the federal district court for the District of Delaware), in all cases subject to the court having jurisdiction over indispensable parties named as defendants. Our Bylaws further provide that the federal district courts of the United States will be the exclusive forum for resolving any complaints asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act.
Any person or entity purchasing or otherwise acquiring any interest in any of our securities shall be deemed to have notice of and consented to this provision. This exclusive forum provision may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum of its choosing for disputes with us or our directors, officers or other employees, which may discourage lawsuits against us and our directors, officers and other employees. This exclusive forum provision will not apply to any causes of action arising under the Securities Act or the Exchange Act or any other claim for which the federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction. Further, the enforceability of similar choice of forum provisions in other companies’ charter documents has been challenged in legal proceedings, and it is possible that a court could find these types of provisions to be inapplicable or unenforceable. For example, the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware recently determined that a provision stating that U.S. federal district courts are the exclusive forum for resolving any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act is not enforceable. However, this decision may be reviewed and ultimately overturned by the Delaware Supreme Court. If a court were to find either exclusive forum provision in our Bylaws to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving the dispute in other jurisdictions, which could harm our results of operations.
Charter documents and Delaware law could prevent a takeover that stockholders consider favorable and could also reduce the market price of our stock.
Our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws contain provisions that could delay or prevent a change in control of the Company. These provisions could also make it more difficult for stockholders to elect directors and take other corporate actions. These provisions include:
•authorizing our Board of Directors to issue preferred stock with voting or other rights or preferences that could discourage a takeover attempt or delay changes in control;
•certain of our shareholders, including our founders, hold sufficient voting power to control voting for election of directors and amend our Certificate of Incorporation;
•prohibiting cumulative voting in the election of directors;
•providing that vacancies on our Board of Directors may be filled only by a majority of directors then in office, even though less than a quorum;
•limiting the liability of, and the indemnification of, our directors and officers;
•prohibiting the adoption, amendment or repeal of our Bylaws or the repeal of the provisions of our Certificate of Incorporation regarding the election and removal of directors without the required approval of at least two-thirds of the shares entitled to vote at an election of directors;
•enabling our Board of Directors to amend the Bylaws, which may allow our Board of Directors to take additional actions to prevent an unsolicited takeover and inhibit the ability of an acquirer to amend the Bylaws to facilitate an unsolicited takeover attempt; and
•prohibiting stockholder action by written consent;
•limiting the persons who may call special meetings of stockholders; and
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•requiring advance notification of stockholder nominations and proposals, which could preclude Stockholders from bringing matters before annual or special meetings of stockholders and delay changes in our Board of Directors and also may discourage or deter a potential acquirer from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect its own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of us.
These provisions 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 Board of Directors, which is responsible for appointing the members of our management. In addition, the provisions of Section 203 of the DGCL govern Aurora. These provisions may prohibit large stockholders, in particular those owning 15% or more of our outstanding voting stock, from merging or combining with Aurora for a certain period of time without the consent of its Board of Directors.
These and other provisions in our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws and under Delaware law could discourage potential takeover attempts, reduce the price investors might be willing to pay in the future for shares of our common stock and result in the market price of our common stock being lower than it would be without these provisions.
Claims for indemnification by our directors and officers may reduce our available funds to satisfy successful third-party claims against us and may reduce the amount of money available to us.
Our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws provide that we will indemnify our directors and officers, in each case to the fullest extent permitted by Delaware law.
In addition, as permitted by Section 145 of the DGCL, our Bylaws and our indemnification agreements that we entered into with our directors and officers provide that:
•We will indemnify our directors and officers for serving the Company in those capacities or for serving other business enterprises at our request, to the fullest extent permitted by Delaware law. Delaware law provides that a corporation may indemnify such person if such person acted in good faith and in a manner such person reasonably believed to be in or not opposed to the best interests of the registrant and, with respect to any criminal proceeding, had no reasonable cause to believe such person’s conduct was unlawful;
•We may, in our discretion, indemnify employees and agents in those circumstances where indemnification is permitted by applicable law;
•We will be required to advance expenses, as incurred, to our directors and officers in connection with defending a proceeding, except that such directors or officers shall undertake to repay such advances if it is ultimately determined that such person is not entitled to indemnification;
•We will not be obligated pursuant to our Bylaws to indemnify a person with respect to proceedings initiated by that person against the Company or our other indemnitees, except with respect to proceedings authorized by our Board of Directors or brought to enforce a right to indemnification;
•the rights conferred in our Bylaws are not exclusive, and we are authorized to enter into indemnification agreements with our directors, officers, employees and agents and to obtain insurance to indemnify such persons; and
•We may not retroactively amend our Bylaws provisions to reduce our indemnification obligations to directors, officers, employees and agents.
We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future.
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our capital stock and do not intend to pay any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. We expect to retain future earnings, if any, to fund the development and growth of our business. Any future determination to pay dividends on our capital stock will be at the discretion of our Board. Accordingly, investors must rely on sales of our common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investments.
We may be subject to securities litigation, which is expensive and could divert management attention.
The market price of our common stock may be volatile and, in the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future. Securities litigation against the Company could result in substantial costs and divert management’s attention from other business concerns, which could seriously harm its business.
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Future resales of common stock may cause the market price of our securities to drop significantly, even if our business is doing well.
Subject to certain exceptions, Reinvent Sponsor Y LLC, a Cayman Islands limited liability company (the “SPAC Sponsor”) and the parties who held stock and/or equity awards in Legacy Aurora prior to the Merger (the “Aurora Stockholders”) are contractually restricted from selling or transferring any of their shares of Aurora common stock (the “Lock-up Shares”) for certain periods of time. Under the Amended and Restated Registration Rights Agreement we entered into in connection with the Merger (the “Registration Rights Agreement”), such lock-up restrictions applicable to the Lock-up Parties’ (as defined in the Registration Rights Agreement) Lock-up Shares (as defined in the Registration Rights Agreement) begin at the closing of the Merger (the “Closing”) and end in tranches of 25% of the Lock-Up Parties’ Lock-up Shares at each of (i) the one year anniversary of Closing, (ii) the two-year anniversary of the Closing, (iii) the three-year anniversary of the Closing and (iv) the four-year anniversary of the Closing. Notwithstanding the foregoing, (i) each of Mr. Urmson, Mr. Anderson and Mr. Bagnell (collectively, the “Aurora Founders”) may sell Registrable Securities (as defined in the Registration Rights Agreement) following the initial six months after the Closing up to an amount of $25 million each and (ii) if, after Closing, Aurora completes a transaction that results in a change of control, the Lock-Up Parties’ Lock-up Shares are released from restriction immediately prior to such change of control. Under the Sponsor Agreement, the Sponsor’s lock-up Shares are subject to the same releases as the Lock-Up Parties’ Lock-up Shares, except the Sponsor’s Lock-up Shares do not contain the right to sell Registrable Shares held by the Aurora Founders, as described in the previous sentence.
However, following the expiration of each lockup, the applicable stockholders will not be restricted from selling shares of our common stock held by them, other than by applicable securities laws. Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market could occur at any time. These sales, or the perception in the market that the holders of a large number of shares intend to sell shares, could reduce the market price of our common stock.
As restrictions on resale end, the sale or possibility of sale of these shares could have the effect of increasing the volatility in our share price or the market price of our common stock could decline if the holders of currently restricted shares sell them or are perceived by the market as intending to sell them.
The market price and trading volume of our common stock may be volatile and could decline significantly.
The stock markets, including Nasdaq on which we list our shares of Class A common stock, have from time to time experienced significant price and volume fluctuations. Even if an active, liquid and orderly trading market develops and is sustained for our Class A common stock, the market price of our Class A common stock may be volatile and could decline significantly. In addition, the trading volume in our Class A common stock may fluctuate and cause significant price variations to occur. If the market price of our Class A common stock declines significantly, you may be unable to resell your shares at an attractive price (or at all). The market price of our Class A common stock could fluctuate widely or decline significantly in the future in response to a number of factors, including, among others, the factors listed below. In such circumstances, the trading price of our securities may not recover and may experience a further decline.
Factors affecting the trading price of our securities may include:
•the realization of any of the risk factors presented in this Quarterly Report;
•our ability to bring our products to market on a timely basis, or at all;
•any major change in our management or Board;
•our ability to adhere to the anticipated timelines on our roadmap to commercial launch of Aurora Horizon and/or progress in the Autonomy Readiness Measure that does not meet the expectations of the market;
•poor performance or fluctuations of the Autonomy Performance Indicator;
•changes in the industries in which we and our customers operate;
•developments involving, or successes of, our competitors;
•changes in laws and regulations affecting our business;
•actual or anticipated differences in our estimates, or in the estimates of analysts, for our revenues, results of operations, level of indebtedness, liquidity or financial condition;
•changes in the market’s expectations about our revenues, results of operations, level of indebtedness, liquidity or financial condition;
•additions and departures of key personnel;
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•failure to comply with the requirements of Nasdaq;
•failure to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act or other laws or regulations;
•future issuances, sales, resales or repurchases or anticipated issuances, sales, resales or repurchases, of our securities;
•the volume of shares of our common stock available for public sale;
•publication of research reports, financial estimates and recommendations by securities analysts about us or our competitors or our industry;
•the public’s reaction to our press releases, its other public announcements and its filings with the SEC;
•actions by stockholders, including the sale by our directors, executive officers or significant investors of any of their shares of our common stock or the perception that such sales could occur;
•the performance, financial results and market valuations of other companies that are, or are perceived to be, similar to us;
•commencement of, or involvement in, litigation involving us;
•broad disruptions in the financial markets, including sudden disruptions in the credit markets;
•speculation in the press or investment community;
•actual, potential or perceived control, accounting or reporting problems;
•changes in accounting principles, policies and guidelines;
•general economic and political conditions such as recessions, interest rates, fuel prices, and international currency fluctuations; and
•other events or factors, including those resulting from infectious diseases, health epidemics and pandemics (including the ongoing COVID-19 public health emergency), natural disasters, war, acts of terrorism or responses to these events.
Broad market and industry factors may materially harm the market price of our securities irrespective of our operating performance. The stock market in general, and Nasdaq in particular, have experienced price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of the particular companies affected. The trading prices and valuations of these stocks, and of our securities, may not be predictable. A loss of investor confidence in the market stocks of other companies which investors perceive to be similar to ours could materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations. A decline in the market price of our securities also could adversely affect our ability to issue additional securities and our ability to obtain additional financing in the future.
In the past, securities class-action litigation has often been instituted against companies following periods of volatility in the market price of their shares. This type of litigation could result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention and resources, which could have a material adverse effect on us.
The dual class structure of our common stock has the effect of concentrating voting control with the Aurora Founders. This will limit or preclude your ability to influence corporate matters, including the outcome of important transactions, including a change in control.
Our Class B common stock has 10 votes per share, and our Class A common stock has one vote per share. Shares held by the Aurora Founders represent 48% of the voting control of the Company as of September 30, 2022. Therefore, the Aurora Founders, individually or together, will be able to significantly influence matters submitted to our stockholders for approval, including the election of directors, amendments of our organizational documents and any merger, consolidation, sale of all or substantially all of our assets or other major corporate transactions. The Aurora Founders, individually or together, may have interests that differ from yours and may vote in a way with which you disagree and which may be adverse to your interests. This concentrated control may have the effect of delaying, preventing or deterring a change in control of our company, could deprive our stockholders of an opportunity to receive a premium for their capital stock as part of a sale of our company and might ultimately affect the market price of our Class A common stock.
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Future transfers by the holders of our Class B common stock will generally result in those shares converting into shares of our Class A common stock, subject to limited exceptions, such as certain transfers effected for estate planning or charitable purposes. In addition, each share of our Class B common stock will convert automatically into one share of our Class A common stock upon (i) the date specified by affirmative written election of the holders of two-thirds of the then-outstanding shares of our Class B common stock, (ii) the date set by our board of directors that is no less than 61 days and no more than 180 days following the date on which the shares of our Class B common stock held by the Aurora Founders and their permitted entities and permitted transferees represent less than 20% of our Class B common stock held by the Aurora Founders and their permitted entities as of immediately following the closing of the Merger or (iii) nine months after the death or total disability of the last to die or become disabled of the Aurora Founders, or such later date not to exceed a total period of 18 months after such death or disability as may be approved by a majority of our independent directors.
We cannot predict the impact our dual class structure may have on our stock price.
We cannot predict whether our dual class structure will result in a lower or more volatile market price of our Class A common stock or in adverse publicity or other adverse consequences. For example, certain index providers have announced restrictions on including companies with multiple-class share structures in certain of their indexes. In July 2017, FTSE Russell and S&P Dow Jones announced that they would cease to allow most newly public companies utilizing dual or multi-class capital structures to be included in their indices. Affected indices include the Russell 2000 and the S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400 and S&P SmallCap 600, which together make up the S&P Composite 1500. Beginning in 2017, MSCI, a leading stock index provider, opened public consultations on their treatment of no-vote and multi-class structures and temporarily barred new multi-class listings from certain of its indices; however, in October 2018, MSCI announced its decision to include equity securities “with unequal voting structures” in its indices and to launch a new index that specifically includes voting rights in its eligibility criteria. Under the announced policies, our dual class capital structure would make us ineligible for inclusion in certain indices, and as a result, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and other investment vehicles that attempt to passively track those indices will not be investing in our stock. These policies are still fairly new and it is as of yet unclear what effect, if any, they will have on the valuations of publicly traded companies excluded from the indices, but it is possible that they may depress these valuations compared to those of other similar companies that are included. Because of our dual class structure, we will likely be excluded from certain of these indexes and we cannot assure you that other stock indexes will not take similar actions. Given the sustained flow of investment funds into passive strategies that seek to track certain indexes, exclusion from stock indexes would likely preclude investment by many of these funds and could make our Class A common stock less attractive to other investors. As a result, the market price of our Class A common stock could be adversely affected.
The exercise of warrants for our Class A common stock would increase the number of shares eligible for future resale in the public market and result in dilution to our stockholders.
As of September 30, 2022, we had warrants to purchase an aggregate of 21,118,291 shares of our Class A common stock outstanding, comprising 12,218,291 public warrants and 8,900,000 private placement warrants. These warrants became exercisable 30 days after the completion of the Merger. The likelihood that those warrants will be exercised increases if the trading price of shares of our Class A common stock exceeds the exercise price of the warrants. The exercise price of these warrants is $11.50 per share.
There is no guarantee that the warrants will become in the money prior to their expiration, and as such, the warrants may expire worthless.
To the extent the warrants are exercised, additional shares of our Class A common stock will be issued, which will result in dilution to the holders of our common stock and increase the number of shares eligible for resale in the public market. Sales of substantial numbers of shares issued upon the exercise of warrants in the public market or the potential that such warrants may be exercised could also adversely affect the market price of our Class A common stock.
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We may redeem unexpired public warrants prior to their exercise at a time that is disadvantageous to their holders, thereby making public warrants worthless.
We have the ability to redeem the outstanding public warrants at any time prior to their expiration at a price of $0.01 per warrant, if and only if, the last reported sales price of our Class A common stock equals or exceeds $18.00 per share (as adjusted for adjustments to the number of shares issuable upon exercise or the exercise price of a warrant) for any 20 trading days within a 30 trading-day period ending on the third trading day prior to the date we send the notice of redemption to the warrant holders (the “Reference Value”). If and when the warrants become redeemable by us, we may exercise our redemption right even if we are unable to register or qualify the underlying securities for sale under all applicable state securities laws. Redemption of the outstanding warrants as described above could force you to: (1) exercise your warrants and pay the exercise price therefor at a time when it may be disadvantageous for you to do so; (2) sell your warrants at the then-current market price when you might otherwise wish to hold your warrants; or (3) accept the nominal redemption price which, at the time the outstanding warrants are called for redemption, we expect would be substantially less than the market value of your warrants. None of the private placement warrants will be redeemable by us in such a case so long as they are held by the Sponsor or its permitted transferees, but the Sponsor has agreed to exercise all of its private placement warrants for cash or on a “cashless basis” on or prior to the redemption date, in the event that the Reference Value exceeds $18.00 per share (as adjusted for adjustments to the number of shares issuable upon exercise or the exercise price of a warrant) and we elect to redeem the public warrants pursuant to the Warrant Agreement and notify the Sponsor of such election and the redemption date on or prior to the date we mail a notice of redemption to the holders of the public warrants.
In addition, we will have the ability to redeem the outstanding warrants (including the private placement warrants if the Reference Value is less than $18.00 per share) for shares of our common stock at any time prior to their expiration, at a price of $0.10 per warrant if, among other things, the Reference Value equals or exceeds $10.00 per share (as adjusted for adjustments to the number of shares issuable upon exercise or the exercise price of a warrant). In such a case, the holders will be able to exercise their warrants prior to redemption for a number of shares of our common stock determined based on the redemption date and the fair market value of our common stock. The value received upon exercise of the warrants (1) may be less than the value the holders would have received if they had exercised their warrants at a later time where the underlying share price is higher and (2) may not compensate the holders for the value of the warrants, including because the number of shares received is capped at 0.361 shares of our Class A common stock per warrant (subject to adjustment) irrespective of the remaining life of the warrants.
In the event we elect to redeem the warrants that are subject to redemption, we will mail the notice of redemption by first class mail, postage prepaid, not less than thirty days prior to the redemption date to the registered holders of the warrants to be redeemed at their last addresses as they appear on the registration books. Any notice mailed in such manner will be conclusively presumed to have been duly given whether or not the registered holder received such notice and we are not required to provide any notice to the beneficial owners of such warrants. Additionally, while we are required to provide such notice of redemption, we are not separately required to, and do not currently intend to, notify any holders of when the warrants become eligible for redemption. If you do not exercise your warrants in connection with a redemption, including because you are unaware that such warrants are being redeemed, you would only receive the nominal redemption price for your warrants.
If securities or industry analysts do not continue to publish or cease publishing research or reports about us, our business, or the market in which we operate, or if they change their recommendations regarding our securities adversely, the price and trading volume of our securities could decline.
The trading market for our securities will be influenced by the research and reports that industry or securities analysts may publish about us, our business, market or competitors. If any of the analysts who cover us change their recommendation regarding our shares of common stock adversely, or provide more favorable relative recommendations about our competitors, the price of our Class A common stock would likely decline. If any analyst who covers us were to cease our coverage of us or fail to regularly publish reports on it, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which in turn could cause our share price or trading volume to decline.
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Future issuances of debt securities and equity securities may adversely affect us, including the market price of our Class A common stock and may be dilutive to existing stockholders.
In the future, we may incur debt or issue equity ranking senior to our Class A common stock. Those securities will generally have priority upon liquidation. Such securities also may be governed by an indenture or other instrument containing covenants restricting its operating flexibility. Additionally, any convertible or exchangeable securities that we issue in the future may have rights, preferences and privileges more favorable than those of our Class A common stock. Because our decision to issue debt or equity in the future will depend on market conditions and other factors beyond our control, we cannot predict or estimate the amount, timing, nature or success of our future capital raising efforts. As a result, future capital raising efforts may reduce the market price of our Class A common stock and be dilutive to existing stockholders.
Our failure to meet the continued listing requirements of Nasdaq could result in a delisting of our securities.
If we fail to satisfy the continued listing requirements of Nasdaq such as the corporate governance requirements or the minimum closing bid price requirement, Nasdaq may take steps to delist our securities. Such a delisting would likely have a negative effect on the price of the securities and would impair your ability to sell or purchase the securities when you wish to do so. In the event of a delisting, we can provide no assurance that any action taken by us to restore compliance with listing requirements would allow our securities to become listed again, stabilize the market price or improve the liquidity of our securities, prevent our securities from dropping below the Nasdaq minimum bid price requirement or prevent future non-compliance with Nasdaq’s listing requirements. Additionally, if our securities are not listed on, or become delisted from, Nasdaq for any reason, and are quoted on the OTC Bulletin Board, an inter-dealer automated quotation system for equity securities that is not a national securities exchange, the liquidity and price of our securities may be more limited than if we were quoted or listed on Nasdaq or another national securities exchange. You may be unable to sell your securities unless a market can be established or sustained.
Item 2. Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities and Use of Proceeds
None.
Item 3. Defaults Upon Senior Securities
None.
Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures
Not applicable.
Item 5. Other Information
None.
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Item 6. Exhibits.
| Exhibit Number | Description | |||||||
| 31.1* | ||||||||
| 31.2* | ||||||||
| 32.1** | ||||||||
| 32.2** | ||||||||
| 101.INS* | XBRL Instance Document | |||||||
| 101.SCH* | XBRL Taxonomy Extension Schema Document | |||||||
| 101.CAL* | XBRL Taxonomy Extension Calculation Linkbase Document | |||||||
| 101.DEF* | XBRL Taxonomy Extension Definition Linkbase Document | |||||||
| 101.LAB* | XBRL Taxonomy Extension Label Linkbase Document | |||||||
| 101.PRE* | XBRL Taxonomy Extension Presentation Linkbase Document | |||||||
| 104* | Cover Page Interactive Data File (formatted as Inline XBRL and contained in Exhibit 101) | |||||||
__________
*Filed herewith.
** The certifications attached as Exhibit 32.1 and 32.2 that accompany this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q are deemed furnished and not filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and are not to be incorporated by reference into any filing of Aurora Innovation, Inc. under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, whether made before or after the date of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, irrespective of any general incorporation language contained in such filing.
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SIGNATURES
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned thereunto duly authorized.
| AURORA INNOVATION, INC. | ||||||||||||||
| Date: | November 2, 2022 | By: | /s/ Chris Urmson | |||||||||||
| Name: | Chris Urmson | |||||||||||||
| Title: | Chairman and Chief Executive Officer | |||||||||||||
| (Principal Executive Officer) | ||||||||||||||
| Date: | November 2, 2022 | By: | /s/ Richard Tame | |||||||||||
| Name: | Richard Tame | |||||||||||||
| Title: | Chief Financial Officer | |||||||||||||
| (Principal Financial Officer) | ||||||||||||||
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Exhibit 31.1
CERTIFICATION PURSUANT TO
RULES 13a-14(a) AND 15d-14(a) UNDER THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934,
AS ADOPTED PURSUANT TO SECTION 302 OF THE SARBANES-OXLEY ACT OF 2002
I, Chris Urmson, certify that:
1. I have reviewed this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q of Aurora Innovation, Inc.;
2. Based on my knowledge, this report does not contain any untrue statement of a material fact or omit to state a material fact necessary to make the statements made, in light of the circumstances under which such statements were made, not misleading with respect to the period covered by this report;
3. Based on my knowledge, the financial statements, and other financial information included in this report, fairly present in all material respects the financial condition, results of operations and cash flows of the registrant as of, and for, the periods presented in this report;
4. The registrant's other certifying officer(s) and I are responsible for establishing and maintaining disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Exchange Act Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e)) and internal control over financial reporting (as defined in Exchange Act Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f)) for the registrant and have:
(a) Designed such disclosure controls and procedures, or caused such disclosure controls and procedures to be designed under our supervision, to ensure that material information relating to the registrant, including its consolidated subsidiaries, is made known to us by others within those entities, particularly during the period in which this report is being prepared;
(b) [Omitted];
(c) Evaluated the effectiveness of the registrant's disclosure controls and procedures and presented in this report our conclusions about the effectiveness of the disclosure controls and procedures, as of the end of the period covered by this report based on such evaluation; and
(d) Disclosed in this report any change in the registrant's internal control over financial reporting that occurred during the registrant's most recent fiscal quarter (the registrant's fourth fiscal quarter in the case of an annual report) that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, the registrant's internal control over financial reporting; and
5. The registrant's other certifying officer(s) and I have disclosed, based on our most recent evaluation of internal control over financial reporting, to the registrant's auditors and the audit committee of the registrant's board of directors (or persons performing the equivalent functions):
(a) All significant deficiencies and material weaknesses in the design or operation of internal control over financial reporting which are reasonably likely to adversely affect the registrant's ability to record, process, summarize and report financial information; and
(b) Any fraud, whether or not material, that involves management or other employees who have a significant role in the registrant's internal control over financial reporting.
Date: November 2, 2022
| AURORA INNOVATION, INC. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| By: | /s/ Chris Urmson | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Name: | Chris Urmson | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Title: | Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (Principal Executive Officer) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Exhibit 31.2
CERTIFICATION PURSUANT TO
RULES 13a-14(a) AND 15d-14(a) UNDER THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934,
AS ADOPTED PURSUANT TO SECTION 302 OF THE SARBANES-OXLEY ACT OF 2002
I, Richard Tame, certify that:
1. I have reviewed this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q of Aurora Innovation, Inc.;
2. Based on my knowledge, this report does not contain any untrue statement of a material fact or omit to state a material fact necessary to make the statements made, in light of the circumstances under which such statements were made, not misleading with respect to the period covered by this report;
3. Based on my knowledge, the financial statements, and other financial information included in this report, fairly present in all material respects the financial condition, results of operations and cash flows of the registrant as of, and for, the periods presented in this report;
4. The registrant's other certifying officer(s) and I are responsible for establishing and maintaining disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Exchange Act Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e)) and internal control over financial reporting (as defined in Exchange Act Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f)) for the registrant and have:
(a) Designed such disclosure controls and procedures, or caused such disclosure controls and procedures to be designed under our supervision, to ensure that material information relating to the registrant, including its consolidated subsidiaries, is made known to us by others within those entities, particularly during the period in which this report is being prepared;
(b) [Omitted];
(c) Evaluated the effectiveness of the registrant's disclosure controls and procedures and presented in this report our conclusions about the effectiveness of the disclosure controls and procedures, as of the end of the period covered by this report based on such evaluation; and
(d) Disclosed in this report any change in the registrant's internal control over financial reporting that occurred during the registrant's most recent fiscal quarter (the registrant's fourth fiscal quarter in the case of an annual report) that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, the registrant's internal control over financial reporting; and
5. The registrant's other certifying officer(s) and I have disclosed, based on our most recent evaluation of internal control over financial reporting, to the registrant's auditors and the audit committee of the registrant's board of directors (or persons performing the equivalent functions):
(a) All significant deficiencies and material weaknesses in the design or operation of internal control over financial reporting which are reasonably likely to adversely affect the registrant's ability to record, process, summarize and report financial information; and
(b) Any fraud, whether or not material, that involves management or other employees who have a significant role in the registrant's internal control over financial reporting.
Date: November 2, 2022
| AURORA INNOVATION, INC. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| By: | /s/ Richard Tame | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Name: | Richard Tame | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Title: | Chief Financial Officer (Principal Financial Officer) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Exhibit 32.1
CERTIFICATION PURSUANT TO
18 U.S.C. SECTION 1350, AS ADOPTED PURSUANT TO
SECTION 906 OF THE SARBANES-OXLEY ACT OF 2002
In connection with the Quarterly Report of Aurora Innovation, Inc. (the “Company”) on Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2022 as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the date hereof (the “Report”), I certify, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 1350, as adopted pursuant to Section 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, that:
(1) The Report fully complies with the requirements of section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; and
(2) The information contained in the Report fairly presents, in all material respects, the financial condition and results of operations of the Company.
Date: November 2, 2022
| AURORA INNOVATION, INC. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| By: | /s/ Chris Urmson | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Name: | Chris Urmson | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Title: | Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (Principal Executive Officer) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Exhibit 32.2
CERTIFICATION PURSUANT TO
18 U.S.C. SECTION 1350, AS ADOPTED PURSUANT TO
SECTION 906 OF THE SARBANES-OXLEY ACT OF 2002
In connection with the Quarterly Report of Aurora Innovation, Inc. (the “Company”) on Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2022 as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the date hereof (the “Report”), I certify, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 1350, as adopted pursuant to Section 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, that:
(1) The Report fully complies with the requirements of section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; and
(2) The information contained in the Report fairly presents, in all material respects, the financial condition and results of operations of the Company.
Date: November 2, 2022
| AURORA INNOVATION, INC. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| By: | /s/ Richard Tame | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Name: | Richard Tame | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Title: | Chief Financial Officer (Principal Financial Officer) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||