RISK FACTORS

Investing in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. You should consider carefully the risks and uncertainties described below, together with all of the other information in this prospectus, including our consolidated financial statements and related notes, before deciding whether to purchase shares of our common stock. If any of the following risks are realized, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be materially and adversely affected. In that event, the price of our common stock could decline and you could lose part or all of your investment.

Risks Related to Our Business and Industry

We may not be able to sustain our revenue growth rate in the future.

Our revenue increased by 45% from $77.6 million in 2015 to $112.8 million in 2016 and 19% from $76.4 million in the nine months ended September 30, 2016 to $91.1 million in the nine months ended September 30, 2017. We may not be able to sustain revenue growth consistent with our recent history or at all. You should not consider our revenue growth in recent periods as indicative of our future performance. As we grow our business, we expect our revenue growth rates to slow in future periods due to a number of factors, which may include slowing demand for our solutions, increasing competition, decreasing growth of our overall market, our inability to engage and retain a sufficient number of marketers or banks and credit unions, which we refer to as financial institutions or FIs, or our failure, for any reason, to capitalize on growth opportunities. If we are unable to maintain consistent revenue or revenue growth, our stock price could be volatile, and it may be difficult for us to achieve and maintain profitability.

We are dependent upon our Cardlytics Direct solution.

We have historically derived substantially all of our revenue from our Cardlytics Direct solution, our proprietary native bank advertising channel, and expect to continue to derive substantially all of our future revenue from sales of Cardlytics Direct for the foreseeable future. Approximately 83%, 87% and 92% of our revenue in 2015, 2016 and the nine months ended September 30, 2017, respectively, was derived from sales of Cardlytics Direct. Revenue from our Other Platform Solutions, where we use purchase intelligence outside of the native bank advertising channel, was approximately $13.2 million, $15.0 million and $7.5 million in 2015, 2016 and the nine months ended September 30, 2017, respectively. Substantially all of our total Other Platform Solutions revenue in each of these periods was derived from sales of our Other Platform Solutions delivered as a managed service, which we discontinued as of July 31, 2017. Given that we are now focusing our efforts on more nascent Other Platform Solutions, we do not expect to generate substantial revenue from Other Platform Solutions for the foreseeable future. Accordingly, our total revenue may decline in future periods if we are unable to generate sufficient offsetting revenue from sales of Cardlytics Direct. Our operating results could also suffer due to:

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In addition, we are required to pay consumers incentives with respect to a majority of our Cardlytics Direct marketing campaigns regardless of whether the amount of such consumer incentives exceeds the amount of billings that we are paid by the applicable marketer. Further, we are often required to pay such consumers incentives before we receive payment from the applicable marketer. Accordingly, to the extent that the amount of consumer incentives that we are required to pay materially exceeds the billings that we receive or we encounter any significant failure to ultimately collect payment, our business, financial condition and operating results could be adversely affected.

If we are unable to grow our revenue from sales of our other solutions or if we fail to increase sales of our Cardlytics Direct solution, our business and operating results would be harmed.

We are substantially dependent on Bank of America, National Association, or Bank of America, and a limited number of other FI partners.

Our business is substantially dependent on Bank of America and a limited number of other FI partners. We require participation from our FI partners in Cardlytics Direct and access to their purchase data in order to offer our solutions to marketers and their agencies. We must have FI partners with a sufficient number of customers and levels of customer engagement to ensure that we have robust purchase data and marketing space to support a broad array of incentive programs for marketers. As the amount of revenue that we can generate from marketers with respect to Cardlytics Direct is primarily a function of the number of active users on our FI partners’ digital banking platforms, we believe that the number of monthly active users, or FI MAUs, of any FI partner is indicative of our level of dependence on such FI partner. During 2015, 2016 and the nine months ended September 30, 2017, our largest FI partner, Bank of America, contributed approximately 50%, 47% and 51% of our total FI MAUs, respectively. Lloyds TSB Bank plc, or Lloyds, our largest FI partner in the United Kingdom, contributed approximately 9%, 10% and 9% of our total FI MAUs in 2015, 2016 and the nine months ended September 30, 2017, respectively. Digital Insight Corporation, a subsidiary of NCR Corporation, or Digital Insight, contributed approximately 15%, 13% and 11% of our total FI MAUs in 2015, 2016 and the nine months ended September 30, 2017, respectively. We anticipate that Bank of America, Lloyds and Digital Insight will contribute a significant portion of our total FI MAUs for the foreseeable future.

In addition, we pay our FI partners an FI Share, which is a negotiated and fixed percentage of our billings to marketers less any consumer incentives that we pay to the FIs’ customers and certain third-party data costs. During 2015, 2016 and the nine months ended September 30, 2017, Bank of America accounted for 63%, 64% and 63% of the total FI Share we paid to all FIs, respectively. Lloyds accounted for 11%, 10% and 11% of the total FI Share we paid to all FIs in 2015, 2016 and the nine months ended September 30, 2017, respectively, and Digital Insight accounted for approximately 10%, 9% and 7% of the total FI Share we paid to all FIs in 2015, 2016 and the nine months ended September 30, 2017, respectively. We anticipate that Bank of America, Lloyds and Digital Insight will continue to receive a significant portion of our FI Share for the foreseeable future and the loss of Bank of America, Lloyds, Digital Insight or any other significant FI partner would significantly harm our business, results of operations and financial conditions.

Our agreements with a substantial majority of our FI partners, including Bank of America, Lloyds and Digital Insight have three to five year terms but are terminable by the FI partner on 90 days or less prior notice. If an FI partner terminates its agreement with us, we would lose that FI as a source of purchase data and online banking customers. In addition, even if our FI partners continued to work with us relating to Cardlytics Direct, our FI partners generally have the ability to cease providing us purchase data or limit the way in which we may

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potentially use their data outside of the Cardlytics Direct channel at any time since our contracts with our partners do not include any binding commitments to continue to provide purchase data to us for use outside their respective native bank advertising channel. Our FI partners may elect to withhold from us or limit the use of their purchase data for many reasons, including:

To the extent that we breach or are alleged to have breached the terms of our agreement with any FI partner, or a disagreement arises with an FI partner regarding the interpretation of our contractual arrangements, which has occurred in the past with respect to Bank of America (although Bank of America granted us a waiver) and may occur again in the future, such FI partner may be more likely to cease providing us data or to terminate its agreement with us. The loss of Bank of America, Lloyds, Digital Insight or any other significant FI partner would significantly harm our business, results of operations and financial conditions.

We do not have direct contractual relationships with a substantial majority of our FI partners.

As of September 30, 2017, we had a network of 2,041 FI partners, but only had direct contractual relationships with 17 of these FI partners. Our other FI partners became part of our network through bank processors and digital banking providers, such as Digital Insight and Fidelity Information Services, LLC, or FIS. While FI partners that were part of our network through our relationships with Digital Insight and FIS contributed approximately 12% of our total number of FI MAUs for the nine months ended September 30, 2017, these indirect FI partners represented substantially all of our total FI partners as of September 30, 2017. These indirect FI partners may terminate their relationships with these bank processors or digital banking providers, thereby indirectly terminating their relationships with us, independent of the actual or perceived value of our solutions to them.

Wells Fargo is planning to test a pilot of Cardlytics Direct in certain cities and may not elect to fully implement Cardlytics Direct on a national basis or at all.

In the first quarter of 2018, we plan to launch a pilot of Cardlytics Direct with Wells Fargo & Company, or Wells Fargo, directed at Wells Fargo customers located only in Miami, Florida, Charlotte, North Carolina and San Francisco, California. The pilot will be a test of an implementation that is limited to emailing offers to Wells Fargo customers in these cities and making those offers available in the Wells Fargo Wallet application. Since this will only be a test, Wells Fargo may not elect to implement Cardlytics Direct throughout the entire United States or at all. If Wells Fargo does not elect to launch Cardlytics Direct on a national basis, our business, financial condition and operating results could be harmed. Further, if Wells Fargo decides on a full roll-out of Cardlytics Direct, the timing cannot be predicted.

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We have a significant amount of debt, which may affect our ability to operate our business and secure additional financing in the future.

As of September 30, 2017, our total indebtedness was approximately $55.5 million. In July 2016, we entered into a credit agreement, or the Term Loan, with National Electrical Benefit Fund as lender and Columbia Partners, L.L.C as investment manager. In September 2016, we entered into a loan and security agreement, or the Line of Credit, with Ally Bank and Pacific Western Bank. As of September 30, 2017 there was approximately $32.1 million and $24.5 million outstanding under the Term Loan and the Line of Credit, respectively.

Our Term Loan and our Line of Credit, or collectively, the Credit Facilities, are secured by substantially all of our assets. Our Credit Facilities require us, and any debt instruments we may enter into in the future may require us, to comply with various covenants that limit our ability to, among other things:

We are also required under the Credit Facilities to satisfy and maintain specified financial ratios and other financial condition tests. Our ability to meet those financial ratios and tests can be affected by events beyond our control and we may not meet those ratios and tests. These covenants may make it difficult to operate our business. A failure by us to comply with the covenants or financial ratios contained in our Credit Facilities could result in an event of default, which could adversely affect our ability to respond to changes in our business and manage our operations. Upon the occurrence of an event of default, including the occurrence of a material adverse change, the lenders could elect to declare all amounts outstanding to be due and payable and exercise other remedies as set forth in our Credit Facilities. If the indebtedness under our Credit Facilities were to be accelerated, our future financial condition could be materially adversely affected.

We may incur additional indebtedness in the future. The instruments governing such indebtedness could contain provisions that are as, or more, restrictive than our existing debt instruments. If we are unable to repay, refinance or restructure our indebtedness when payment is due, the lenders could proceed against any collateral granted to them to secure such indebtedness or force us into bankruptcy or liquidation.

If we fail to generate sufficient revenue to offset our contractual commitments to FIs, our business, results of operations and financial conditions could be harmed.

We have a minimum FI Share commitment with a certain FI partner totaling $10.0 million over a 12-month period following completion of certain milestones. In 2017, we paid certain of our FI partners an aggregate of

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approximately $2.6 million related to 2016 FI Share commitments in excess of the amount of FI Share otherwise payable to such FI partners in the absence of such commitments, and it is possible that we may be required to fund similar shortfalls in future periods. In certain cases, we are also responsible for funding certain development costs for user interface enhancements and implementation costs on behalf of FIs. Such development and implementation cost commitments total $12.1 million in 2017 and $9.3 million in 2018. These agreements allow for a total $4.4 million, $5.0 million and $5.0 million to be reimbursed to us through future reductions to FI Share over the course of 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively. To the extent that we are unable to generate revenue from marketers sufficient to offset these FI Share commitments and other obligations, our business, results of operations and financial conditions could be harmed.

If we fail to attract new FI partners or maintain our relationships with bank processors and digital banking providers, we may not be able to sufficiently grow our revenue, which could significantly harm our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Our ability to grow our revenue depends on our ability to attract new FI partners. A significant percentage of consumer credit and debit card spending is concentrated with the 15 largest FIs in the United States, four of which are currently part of our FI network, while the balance of card spending is spread across thousands of smaller FIs. Accordingly, our ability to efficiently grow our revenue will specifically depend on our ability to establish relationships with the large FIs that are not currently part of our network and to maintain our relationships with the large FIs that are currently part of our network. In addition, we must continue to maintain our relationships with our existing bank processor and digital banking provider partners and attract new such partners because these partners aggregate smaller FIs into our network. We have in the past and may in the future be unsuccessful in attempts to establish and maintain relationships with large FIs, bank processors and digital banking providers. If we are unable to attract new FI partners, maintain our relationships with our existing bank processor and digital banking provider partners or attract new bank processor and digital provider partners, our business, results of operations and financial condition would be significantly harmed and we may fail to capture a material portion of the native bank advertising market opportunity.

Our quarterly operating results may vary from period to period, which could result in our failure to meet expectations with respect to operating results and cause the trading price of our stock to decline.

Our operating results have historically fluctuated and our future operating results may vary significantly from quarter to quarter due to a variety of factors, many of which are beyond our control. Period-to-period comparisons of our operating results should not be relied upon as an indication of our future performance. Given our relatively short operating history and the rapidly evolving purchase intelligence industry, our historical operating results may not be useful in predicting our future operating results.

Factors that may impact our quarterly operating results include the factors set forth in this “Risk Factors” section, as well as the following:

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Each factor above or discussed elsewhere in this prospectus or the cumulative effect of some of these factors may result in fluctuations in our operating results. This variability and unpredictability could result in our failure to meet expectations with respect to operating results, or those of securities analysts or investors, for a particular period. If we fail to meet or exceed expectations for our operating results for these or any other reasons, the market price of our stock could fall and we could face costly lawsuits, including securities class action suits.

We have a short operating history, which makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and may increase the risk that we will not be successful.

We have a relatively short operating history, which limits our ability to forecast our future operating results and subjects us to a number of uncertainties, including with respect to our ability to plan for and model future growth. We have encountered and will continue to encounter risks and uncertainties frequently experienced by growing companies in developing industries. If our assumptions regarding these uncertainties, which we use to manage our business, are incorrect or change in response to changes in our markets, or if we do not address these risks successfully, our operating and financial results could differ materially from our expectations, our business could suffer and our stock price could decline. Any success that we may experience in the future will depend in large part on our ability to, among other things:

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Any failure of our FI partners to effectively deliver and promote the online incentive programs that comprise our Cardlytics Direct solution could materially and adversely affect our business.

We have spent the last several years and significant resources building out technology integrations with our FI partners to facilitate the delivery of incentive programs to our FIs’ customers and measuring those customers subsequent in-store or online spending. We are also reliant on our network of FI partners to promote their online incentive programs, increase customer awareness and leverage additional customer outreach channels like email, all of which can increase customer engagement, as well as expand our network of FI partners. We believe that key factors in the success and effectiveness of an incentive program are the following: the level of accessibility and prominence of the program on the FI partners’ website and mobile applications, as well as the user interface through which a customer is presented with marketing content. In certain cases, we have little control over the prominence of the incentive program and design of the user interface that our FI partners choose to use. To the extent that our FI partners deemphasize incentive programs, make incentive programs difficult to locate on their website and/or mobile applications and/or fail to provide a user interface that is appealing to FI customers, FI customers may be less likely to purchase the products or solutions that are featured in incentive programs, which could negatively impact the amount of fees that we are able to charge our marketer customers in connection with marketing campaigns, and, therefore, our revenue. In addition, a failure by FIs to properly deliver or sufficiently promote marketing campaigns would reduce the efficacy of our solutions and impair our ability to attract and retain marketers and their agencies. As a result, the revenue we generate from our Cardlytics Direct solution may be adversely affected, which would materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We derive a material portion of our revenue from a limited number of marketers, and the loss of one or more of these marketers could adversely impact our business, results of operations and financial conditions.

Our marketer base is concentrated with our top five marketers representing 23% of revenue for both 2015 and 2016 and 24% of revenue for the nine months ended September 30, 2017. We do not have long-term commitments from most of these marketers. If we were to lose one or more of our significant marketers, our revenue may significantly decline. In addition, revenue from significant marketers may vary from period-to-period depending on the timing or volume of marketing spend. The loss of one or more of our significant marketers could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial conditions.

Further, our top five marketers represented 27%, 21% and 25% of accounts receivable as of December 31, 2015 and 2016 and September 30, 2017, respectively. Accordingly, our credit risk is concentrated among a limited number of marketers and the failure of any significant marketer to satisfy its obligations to us, on a timely basis or at all, could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial conditions.

Our future success may depend, in part, on our ability to expand demand for our Other Platform Solutions, which are dependent upon our FI partners allowing us to utilize their purchase data for such solutions.

We recently introduced our Other Platform Solutions that leverage our purchase intelligence platform. Revenue from our Other Platform Solutions was approximately $13.2 million, $15.0 million and $7.5 million in 2015,

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2016 and the nine months ended September 30, 2017, respectively. Substantially all of our total Other Platform Solutions revenue in each of these periods was derived from sales of our Other Platform Solutions delivered as a managed service, which we discontinued as of July 31, 2017. Given that we are now focusing our efforts on more nascent Other Platform Solutions, we do not expect to generate substantial revenue from Other Platform Solutions for the foreseeable future. In addition, it is uncertain whether our Other Platform Solutions will gain market acceptance in the near term or at all and, accordingly, whether we will ultimately realize any return on our investment. Any factor adversely affecting sales of our Other Platform Solutions, including market acceptance, competition, performance and reliability, reputation and economic and market conditions, could harm our business, results of operations and financial conditions.

Further, each of our Other Platform Solutions is dependent upon our FI partners allowing us to utilize their purchase data for these solutions. We currently have the right to sell analytics using purchase data from only four of our FI partners outside the banking channel, which four FIs do not include Bank of America. In addition, we have the right to use aggregated Bank of America purchase data combined with aggregated data from other FIs to create summary analytics. If we lose access to any such data for any such uses from these FI partners or do not gain similar access to purchase data from additional FI partners, our ability to sell our Other Platform Solutions would be adversely affected.

We have invested substantial resources in the development and marketing of these solutions. Further, our experience in providing analytics solutions is limited, and if we are unable to effectively gather, process,

analyze and disseminate relevant information, sales of our Other Platform Solutions may suffer. Any failure to grow sales of our Other Platform Solutions could harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

Our business could be adversely affected if marketers or their agencies are not satisfied with our solutions or our systems and infrastructure fail to meet their needs.

We derive nearly all of our revenue from marketers and their agencies. Accordingly, our business depends on our ability to satisfy marketers and their agencies with respect to their marketing needs. With respect to Cardlytics Direct, we rely on our Offer Management System, or OMS, to facilitate the creation of marketing campaigns and evaluate the results of campaigns, and our Offer Placement System, or OPS, to track impressions, engagement, activation and redemptions and to target consumers and present offers. Any failure of, or delays in the performance of, our systems, including without limitation our OMS or OPS, could cause service interruptions or impaired system performance. Such failures in our systems could also cause us to over-run on campaigns, thus committing us to a higher amount of consumer incentives than our marketers approved, which would negatively affect the profitability of the affected campaigns. If sustained or repeated, these performance issues could reduce the attractiveness of our solutions to new and existing marketers and cause existing marketers to reduce or cease using our solutions, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition or operating results. In addition, negative publicity resulting from issues related to our marketer relationships, regardless of accuracy, may damage our business by adversely affecting our ability to attract new marketers or marketing agencies and maintain and expand our relationships with existing marketers.

If the use of our solutions increases, or if marketers or FI partners demand more advanced features from our solutions, we will need to devote additional resources to improving our solutions, and we also may need to expand our technical infrastructure at a more rapid pace than we have in the past. This would involve purchasing or leasing data center capacity and equipment, upgrading our technology and infrastructure and introducing new or enhanced solutions. It may take a significant amount of time to plan, develop and test changes to our infrastructure, and we may not be able to accurately forecast demand or predict the results we will realize from such improvements. There are inherent risks associated with changing, upgrading, improving and expanding our technical infrastructure. Any failure of our solutions to operate effectively with future infrastructure and technologies could reduce the demand for our solutions, resulting in marketer or FI partner dissatisfaction and harm to our business. Also, any expansion of our infrastructure would likely require that we appropriately scale our internal business systems and services organization, including without limitation implementation and support services, to serve our growing marketer base.

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If we are unable to respond to these changes or fully and effectively implement them in a cost-effective and timely manner, our solutions may become ineffective, we may lose marketers and/or FI partners, and our business, financial condition and operating results may be negatively impacted.

We generally do not have long-term commitments from marketers, and if we are unable to retain and increase sales of our solutions to marketers and their agencies or attract new marketers and their agencies, our business, financial condition and operating results would be adversely affected.

Most marketers do business with us by placing insertion orders for particular marketing campaigns, either directly or through marketing agencies that act on their behalf. We generally do not have any commitment from a marketer beyond the campaign governed by a particular insertion order, and we frequently must compete to win further business from a marketer. Our insertion orders may also be cancelled by marketers or their marketing agencies prior to the completion of the campaign; provided that marketers or their agencies are required to pay us for services performed prior to cancellation. As a result, our success is dependent upon our ability to outperform our competitors and win repeat business from existing marketers, while continually expanding the number of marketers for which we provide services. To maintain and increase our revenue, we must encourage existing marketers and their agencies to increase their use of our solutions and add new marketers. Many marketers and marketing agencies, however, have only just begun using our solutions for a limited number of marketing campaigns, and our future revenue growth will depend heavily on these marketers and marketing agencies expanding their use of our solutions across campaigns and otherwise increasing their spending with us. Even if we are successful in convincing marketers and their agencies to use our solutions, it may take several months or years for them to meaningfully increase the amount that they spend with us. Further, larger marketers with multiple brands typically have individual marketing budgets and marketing decision makers for each of their brands, and we may not be able to leverage our success in securing a portion of the marketing budget of one or more of a marketer’s brands into additional business with other brands. Moreover, marketers may place internal limits on the allocation of their marketing budgets to digital marketing, to particular campaigns, to a particular provider or for other reasons. In addition, we are reliant on our FI network to have sufficient marketing inventory within Cardlytics Direct to place the full volume of advertisements contracted for by our marketers and their agencies. Any failure to meet these demands may hamper the growth of our business and the attractiveness of our solutions.

Our ability to retain and increase sales of our solutions and attract new marketers and their agencies may be adversely affected by competitive offerings or marketing methods that are lower priced or perceived as more effective than our solutions. Larger marketers may themselves have a substantial amount of purchase data and they may also seek to augment their own purchase data with additional purchase, impression and/or demographic data acquired from third-party data providers, which may allow them to develop, individually or with partners, internal targeting and measurement capabilities.

Because we do not have long-term agreements with our marketers or their agencies, we may not be able to accurately predict future revenue streams, and we cannot guarantee that our current marketers will continue to use our solutions, or that we will be able to replace departing marketers with new marketers that provide us with comparable revenue. If we are unable to retain and increase sales of our solutions to existing marketers and their agencies or attract new marketers and their agencies for any of the reasons above or for other reasons, our business, financial condition and operating results would be adversely affected.

We have a history of losses and may not achieve profitability in the future.

We have incurred net losses since inception and expect to incur net losses in the future. We incurred net losses of $38.9 million, $40.6 million, $75.7 million and $15.6 million in 2014, 2015, 2016 and the nine months ended September 30, 2017, respectively. As of September 30, 2017, we had an accumulated deficit of $264.4 million. We have never achieved profitability on an annual or quarterly basis and we do not know if we will be able to achieve or sustain profitability. Although our revenue has increased substantially in recent periods, we also do not expect to maintain this rate of revenue growth. We plan to continue to invest in our research and development

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and sales and marketing efforts, and we anticipate that our operating expenses will continue to increase as we scale our business and expand our operations. We also expect our general and administrative expense to increase as a result of our growth and our preparation to become, and operate as, a public company. Our ability to achieve and sustain profitability is based on numerous factors, many of which are beyond our control. We may never be able to generate sufficient revenue to achieve or sustain profitability.

Bringing new FI partners into our network can require considerable time and expense and can be long and unpredictable.

Our FI partners and FI partner prospects engage in highly regulated businesses, are often slow to adopt technological innovation and have rigorous standards with respect to providing third parties, like us, with access to their data. Our operating results depend in part on expanding our FI partner network to maintain and enhance the scale of our solutions. The length of time that it takes to add an FI partner to our network, from initial evaluation to integration into our network, varies substantially from FI to FI and may take several years. Our sales and integration cycle with respect to our FI partners is long and unpredictable, requires considerable time and expense and may not ultimately be successful. It is difficult to predict exactly when, or even if, a new FI partner will join our network and we may not generate revenue from a new FI partner in the same period as we incurred the costs associated with acquiring such FI partner, or at all. Once an FI partner has agreed to work with us, it may take a lengthy period of time for the implementation of our solutions to be prioritized and integrated into the FI partner’s infrastructure. Because a substantial portion of our expenses are relatively fixed in the short term, our operating results will suffer if revenue falls below our expectations in a particular quarter, which could cause the price of our stock to decline. Ultimately, if additions to our FI network are not realized in the time period expected or not realized at all, or if an FI partner terminates its agreement with us, our business, financial condition and operating results could be adversely affected.

We operate in an emerging industry and future demand and market acceptance for our solutions is uncertain.

We believe that our future success will depend in large part on the growth, if any, in the market for purchase intelligence. Utilization of consumer purchase data to inform marketing is an emerging industry and future demand and market acceptance for this type of marketing is uncertain. If the market for purchase intelligence does not continue to develop or develops more slowly than we expect, our business, financial condition and operating results could be harmed.

The market in which we participate is competitive and we may not be able to compete successfully with our current or future competitors.

The market for purchase intelligence is nascent and we believe that there is no one company with which we compete directly across our range of solutions. With respect to Cardlytics Direct, we believe that we are the only company that enables marketing through FI channels at scale. With respect to our Other Platform Solutions, we compete with a number of established companies, as well as numerous emerging market entrants. In the future, we may face competition from online retailers, credit card companies, established enterprise software companies, advertising and marketing agencies, digital publishers and mobile pay providers with access to a substantial amount of consumer purchase data. While we may successfully partner with a wide range of companies that are to some extent currently competitive to us, these companies may become more competitive to us in the future. As we introduce new solutions, as our existing solutions evolve and as other companies introduce new products and solutions, we are likely to face additional competition.

Some of our actual and potential competitors may have advantages over us, such as longer operating histories, significantly greater financial, technical, marketing or other resources, stronger brand and recognition, larger intellectual property portfolios and broader global distribution and presence. In addition, our industry is evolving rapidly and is becoming increasingly competitive. Larger and more established companies may focus on purchase intelligence marketing and could directly compete with us. Smaller companies could also launch new products and services that we do not offer and that could gain market acceptance quickly.

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Our competitors may be able to respond more quickly and effectively than we can to new or changing opportunities, technologies, standards or customer requirements. Larger competitors are also often in a better position to withstand any significant reduction in capital spending, and will therefore not be as susceptible to economic downturns. In addition, current or potential competitors may be acquired by third parties with greater available resources. As a result of such relationships and acquisitions, our current or potential competitors might be able to adapt more quickly to new technologies and customer needs, devote greater resources to the promotion or sale of their products and services, initiate or withstand substantial price competition, take advantage of other opportunities more readily or develop and expand their product and service offerings more quickly than we do. For all of these reasons, we may not be able to compete successfully against our current or future competitors.

If we fail to identify and respond effectively to rapidly changing technology and industry needs, our solutions may become less competitive or obsolete.

Our future success depends on our ability to adapt and innovate. To attract, retain and increase new marketers and FI partners, we will need to expand and enhance our solutions to meet changing needs, add functionality and address technological advancements. If we are unable to adapt our solutions to evolving trends in the marketing industry, if we are unable to properly identify and prioritize appropriate solution development projects or if we fail to develop and effectively market new solutions, such as our nascent Other Platform Solutions, or enhance existing solutions to address the needs of existing and new marketers and FI partners, we may not be able to achieve or maintain adequate market acceptance and penetration of our solutions, and our solutions may become less competitive or obsolete.

In addition, new, more effective or less costly technologies may emerge that use data sources that we do not have access to, that use entirely different analytical methodologies than we do or that use other indicators of purchases by consumers. If existing and new marketers and their agencies perceive greater value in alternative technologies or data sources, our ability to compete for marketers and their agencies could be materially and adversely affected.

Our future success will depend, in part, on our ability to expand into new industry verticals.

We have historically generated a substantial majority of our revenue from marketers in the restaurant, brick and mortar retail, telecommunications and cable industries, and have recently entered new verticals such as hospitality and travel, and believe that our future success will depend, in part, on our ability to expand adoption of our solutions in new industry verticals. As we market to a wider group of potential marketers and their agencies, we will need to adapt our marketing strategies to meet the concerns and expectations of customers in these new industry verticals. Our success in expanding sales of our solutions to marketers in new industry verticals will depend on a variety of factors, including our ability to:

If we are unable to successfully market our solutions to appeal to marketers and their agencies in new industries, we may not be able to achieve our growth or business objectives.

A breach of the security of our systems could result in a third party’s entry into our FI partners’ systems, which would be detrimental to our business, financial condition and operating results.

We leverage our FI partners’ purchase data and infrastructures to deliver our solutions. We do not currently receive any personally identifiable information, or PII, from our FI partners, although we may obtain PII in the

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future as our business evolves. However, because of the interconnected nature of our infrastructure with that of our FI partners, there is a risk that third parties may attempt to gain access to our FI partners’ systems through our systems for the purpose of stealing data or disrupting our or their respective operations. In turn, we may be a more visible target for cyber-attacks and/or physical breaches of our databases or data centers, and we may in the future suffer from such attacks or breaches.

Current or future criminal capabilities, discovery of existing or new vulnerabilities in our systems and attempts to exploit those vulnerabilities or other developments may compromise or breach the technology protecting our systems. In the event that our protection efforts are unsuccessful and our systems are compromised such that a third party gains entry to our or any of our FI partners’ systems, we could suffer substantial harm. A security breach could result in operation disruptions that impair our ability to meet our marketers’ requirements, which could result in decreased revenue. Also, our reputation could suffer irreparable harm, causing our current and prospective marketers and FI partners to decline to use our solutions in the future. Further, we could be forced to expend significant financial and operational resources in response to a security breach, including repairing system damage, increasing cyber security protection costs by deploying additional personnel and protection technologies and litigating and resolving legal claims, all of which could divert resources and the attention of our management and key personnel away from our business operations. In any event, a breach of the security of our systems or data could materially harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

A number of factors could impair our ability to collect the significant amounts of data that we use to deliver our solutions.

Our ability to collect and use data may be restricted or prevented by a number of other factors, including:

Any of the above-described limitations on our ability to successfully collect, utilize and leverage data could also materially impair the optimal performance of our solutions and severely limit our ability to target consumer, which would harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

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The efficacy of some of our solutions depends upon third-party data providers.

We rely on several third parties to assist us in matching our anonymized identifiers, which we call Cardlytics IDs, with third-party identifiers to recognize the digital presence of our FIs’ customers outside the FI channel. This matching process enables us to use purchase intelligence to measure in-store and online campaign sales impact or provide marketers with valuable visibility into the behaviors of current or prospective customers both within and outside the context of their marketing efforts. If any of these key data providers were to withdraw or withhold their identifiers from us, our ability to provide our Other Platform Solutions could be adversely affected. Replacements for these third-party identifiers may not be available in a timely manner or under economically beneficial terms, or at all.

Defects, errors or delays in our solutions could harm our reputation, which would harm our operating results.

The technology underlying our solutions may contain material defects or errors that can adversely affect our ability to operate our business and cause significant harm to our reputation. This risk is compounded by the complexity of the technology underlying our solutions and the large amounts of data that we leverage and process. In addition, with regard to our Cardlytics Direct solution, if we are unable to attribute incentives to our FIs’ customers in a timely manner, our FI partners may limit or discontinue their use of our solutions. Any such error, failure, malfunction, disruption or delay could result in damage to our reputation and could harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

Significant system disruptions or loss of data center capacity could adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.

Our business is heavily dependent upon highly complex data processing capabilities. We contract with our primary third-party data center, located in Atlanta, Georgia, and our redundancy data center, located in Suwanee, Georgia, pursuant to agreements that expire on December 31, 2020, subject to earlier termination upon material breach and a failure to cure. If for any reason our arrangements with our third-party data centers are terminated, or if we are unable to renew our agreements on commercially reasonable terms, we may be required to transfer that portion of our operations to new data center facilities, and we may incur significant costs and possible service interruption in connection with doing so. Further, protection of our third-party data centers against damage or interruption from fire, flood, tornadoes, power loss, telecommunications or equipment failure or other disasters and events beyond our control is important to our continued success. Any damage to, or failure of, the systems of the data centers that we utilize, or of our own equipment located within such data centers, could result in interruptions to the availability or functionality of our solutions. In addition, the failure of the data centers that we utilize to meet our capacity requirements could result in interruptions in the availability or functionality of our solutions or impede our ability to scale our operations. Any damage to the data centers that we utilize, or to our own equipment located within such data centers, that causes loss of capacity or otherwise causes interruptions in our operations could materially adversely affect our ability to quickly and effectively respond to our marketers’ or FI partners’ requirements, which could result in loss of their confidence, adversely impact our ability to attract new marketers and/or FI partners and force us to expend significant resources. The occurrence of any such events could adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.

Seasonal fluctuations in marketing activity could adversely affect our cash flows.

We expect our revenue, operating results, cash flows from operations and other key operating and performance metrics to vary from quarter to quarter in part due to the seasonal nature of our marketers’ spending on digital marketing campaigns. For example, many marketers tend to devote a significant portion of their budgets to the fourth quarter of the calendar year to coincide with consumer holiday spending and to reduce spend in the first quarter of the calendar year. Seasonality could have a material impact on our revenue, operating results, cash flow from operations and other key operating and performance metrics from period to period.

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Our international sales and operations subject us to additional risks that can adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.

In each of 2015 and 2016, we derived 11% of our revenue outside the United States. In the nine months ended September 30, 2017, 12% of our revenue was derived outside the United States. We may continue to expand our international operations as part of our growth strategy. While we have an office in the United Kingdom, substantially all of our operations are located in the United States. Our ability to convince marketers to expand their use of our solutions or renew their agreements with us is directly correlated to our direct engagement with such marketers or their agencies. To the extent that we are unable to engage with non-U.S. marketers and agencies effectively with our limited sales force capacity, we may be unable to grow sales to existing marketers to the same degree we have experienced in the United States.

Our international operations subject us to a variety of risks and challenges, including:

Any of these risks could adversely affect our international operations, reduce our international revenues or increase our operating costs, adversely affecting our business, financial condition and operating results.

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If we do not manage our growth effectively, the quality of our solutions may suffer, and our business, financial condition and operating results may be negatively affected.

The recent, rapid growth in our business has placed, and is expected to continue to place, a significant strain on our managerial, administrative, operational and financial resources, as well as our infrastructure. We rely heavily on information technology, or IT, systems to manage critical functions such as data storage, data processing, matching and retrieval, revenue recognition, budgeting, forecasting and financial reporting. To manage our growth effectively, we must continue to improve and expand our infrastructure, including our IT, financial and administrative systems and controls. In particular, we may need to significantly expand our IT infrastructure as the amount of data we store and transmit increases over time, which will require that we both utilize existing IT products and adopt new technologies. If we are not able to scale our IT infrastructure in a cost-effective and secure manner, our ability to offer competitive solutions will be harmed and our business, financial condition and operating results may suffer.

We must also continue to manage our employees, operations, finances, research and development and capital investments efficiently. Our productivity and the quality of our solutions may be adversely affected if we do not integrate and train our new employees quickly and effectively or if we fail to appropriately coordinate across our executive, research and development, technology, service development, analytics, finance, human resources, marketing, sales, operations and customer support teams. If we continue our rapid growth, we will incur additional expenses, and our growth may continue to place a strain on our resources, infrastructure and ability to maintain the quality of our solutions. If we do not adapt to meet these evolving challenges, or if the current and future members of our management team do not effectively manage our growth, the quality of our solutions may suffer and our corporate culture may be harmed. Failure to manage our future growth effectively could cause our business to suffer, which, in turn, could have an adverse impact on our business, financial condition and operating results.

Our corporate culture has contributed to our success, and if we cannot maintain it as we grow, we could lose the innovation, creativity and teamwork fostered by our culture, and our business may be harmed.

We are undergoing rapid growth. As of September 30, 2017, we had 337 employees. We intend to further expand our overall headcount and operations, with no assurance that we will be able to do so while effectively maintaining our corporate culture. We believe our corporate culture is one of our fundamental strengths as it enables us to attract and retain top talent and deliver superior results for our customers. As we grow and change, we may find it difficult to preserve our corporate culture, which could reduce our ability to innovate and operate effectively. In turn, the failure to preserve our culture could negatively affect our ability to attract, recruit, integrate and retain employees, continue to perform at current levels and effectively execute our business strategy.

We are dependent on the continued services and performance of our senior management and other key personnel, the loss of any of whom could adversely affect our business.

Our future success depends in large part on the continued contributions of our senior management and other key personnel, including our two founders, Scott Grimes, our Chief Executive Officer, and Lynne Laube, our Chief Operating Officer. In particular, the leadership of key management personnel is critical to the successful management of our company, the development of our solutions and our strategic direction. We do not maintain “key person” insurance for any member of our senior management team or any of our other key employees. Our senior management and key personnel are all employed on an at-will basis, which means that they could terminate their employment with us at any time, for any reason and without notice. The loss of any of our key management personnel could significantly delay or prevent the achievement of our development and strategic objectives and adversely affect our business.

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If we are unable to attract, integrate and retain additional qualified personnel, including top technical talent, our business could be adversely affected.

Our future success depends in part on our ability to identify, attract, integrate and retain highly skilled technical, managerial, sales and other personnel, including top technical talent from the industry and top research institutions. We face intense competition for qualified individuals from numerous other companies, including other software and technology companies, many of whom have greater financial and other resources than we do. These companies also may provide more diverse opportunities and better chances for career advancement. Some of these characteristics may be more appealing to high-quality candidates than those we have to offer. In addition, new hires often require significant training and, in many cases, take significant time before they achieve full productivity. We may incur significant costs to attract and retain qualified personnel, including significant expenditures related to salaries and benefits and compensation expenses related to equity awards and we may lose new employees to our competitors or other companies before we realize the benefit of our investment in recruiting and training them. Moreover, new employees may not be or become as productive as we expect, as we may face challenges in adequately or appropriately integrating them into our workforce and culture. In addition, as we move into new geographies, we will need to attract and recruit skilled personnel in those areas. We have little experience with recruiting in geographies outside of the United States, and may face additional challenges in attracting, integrating and retaining international employees. If we are unable to attract, integrate and retain suitably qualified individuals who are capable of meeting our growing technical, operational and managerial requirements, on a timely basis or at all, our business will be adversely affected.

If we do not effectively grow and train our sales team, we may be unable to add new marketers or increase sales to our existing marketers and our business will be adversely affected.

We continue to be substantially dependent on our sales team to obtain new marketers and to drive sales with respect to our existing marketers. We believe that the characteristics and skills of the best salespeople for our solutions are still being defined, as our market is relatively new. Further, we believe that there is, and will continue to be, significant competition for sales personnel with the skills and technical knowledge that we require. Our ability to achieve significant revenue growth will depend, in large part, on our success in recruiting, training, integrating and retaining sufficient numbers of sales personnel to support our growth. New hires require significant training and it may take significant time before they achieve full productivity. Our recent hires and planned hires may not become productive as quickly as we expect, and we may be unable to hire or retain sufficient numbers of qualified individuals in the markets where we do business or plan to do business. In addition, as we continue to grow rapidly, a large percentage of our sales team will be new to our company and our solutions. If we are unable to hire and train sufficient numbers of effective sales personnel, or the sales personnel are not successful in obtaining new marketers or increasing sales to our existing marketers, our business will be adversely affected.

The market data and forecasts included in this prospectus may prove to be inaccurate, and even if the markets in which we compete achieve the forecasted growth, we cannot assure you that our business will grow at similar rates, or at all.

The market data and forecasts included in this prospectus, including the data and forecasts published by eMarketer, Kantar Media, The Nilson Report, Frost & Sullivan, MAGNA Global and CMO Council, among others, and our internal estimates and research are subject to significant uncertainty and are based on assumptions and estimates that may not prove to be accurate. If the forecasts of market growth or anticipated spending prove to be inaccurate, our business and growth prospects could be adversely affected. Even if the forecasted growth occurs, our business may not grow at a similar rate, or at all. Our future growth is subject to many factors, including our ability to successfully implement our business strategy, which itself is subject to many risks and uncertainties. The reports described in this prospectus speak as of their respective publication dates and the opinions expressed in such reports are subject to change. Accordingly, potential investors in our common stock are urged not to put undue reliance on such forecasts and market data.

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If currency exchange rates fluctuate substantially in the future, the results of our operations could be adversely affected.

Due to our international operations, we may be exposed to the effects of fluctuations in currency exchange rates. We generate revenue and incur expenses for employee compensation and other operating expenses at our U.K. office in the local currency. Fluctuations in the exchange rates between the U.S. dollar and the British pound could result in the dollar equivalent of such revenue and expenses being lower, which could have a negative net impact on our reported operating results. Although we may in the future decide to undertake foreign exchange hedging transactions to cover a portion of our foreign currency exchange exposure, we currently do not hedge our exposure to foreign currency exchange risks.

Our business may be subject to additional obligations to collect and remit sales tax and other taxes, and we may be subject to tax liability for past sales. Any successful action by state, local or other authorities to collect additional or past sales tax could adversely harm our business.

We are subject to federal, state and local taxes in the United States and similar taxes in foreign jurisdictions. Significant judgment is required in evaluating our tax positions and our worldwide provision for taxes. During the ordinary course of business, there are many activities and transactions for which the ultimate tax determination is uncertain. We may be audited in various jurisdictions, and such jurisdictions may assess additional taxes against us. Although we believe that our tax estimates are reasonable, the final determination of any tax audits or litigation could be materially different from our historical tax provisions and accruals, which could have a material adverse effect on our operating results or cash flows in the period or periods for which a determination is made.

We do not collect sales or other similar taxes in certain states and many of the states do not apply sales or similar taxes to certain of our solutions. State, local and foreign taxing jurisdictions have differing rules and regulations governing sales and use taxes, and these rules and regulations are subject to varying interpretations that may change over time. In particular, the applicability of sales taxes to our solutions in various jurisdictions is unclear. We review these rules and regulations periodically and, when we believe we are subject to sales and use taxes in a particular state, we may voluntarily engage state tax authorities to determine how to comply with their rules and regulations. A successful assertion by one or more states, including states for which we have not accrued tax liability, requiring us to collect sales or other taxes with respect to sales of our solutions could result in substantial tax liabilities for past transactions, including interest and penalties, discourage customers from purchasing our solutions or otherwise harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

Determining our income tax rate is complex and subject to uncertainty.

The computation of provision for income tax is complex, as it is based on the laws of numerous taxing jurisdictions and requires significant judgment on the application of complicated rules governing accounting for tax provisions under GAAP. Provision for income tax for interim quarters is based on a forecast of our U.S. and non-U.S. effective tax rates for the year, which includes forward looking financial projections, including the expectations of profit and loss by jurisdiction, and contains numerous assumptions. Various items cannot be accurately forecasted and future events may be treated as discrete to the period in which they occur. Our provision for income tax can be materially impacted, for example, by the geographical mix of our profits and losses, changes in our business, such as internal restructuring and acquisitions, changes in tax laws and accounting guidance and other regulatory, legislative or judicial developments, tax audit determinations, changes in our uncertain tax positions, changes in our intent and capacity to permanently reinvest foreign earnings, changes to our transfer pricing practices, tax deductions attributed to equity compensation and changes in our need for a valuation allowance for deferred tax assets. For these reasons, our actual income taxes may be materially different than our provision for income tax.

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Our use of our net operating loss carryforwards may be limited and such carryforwards may expire unutilized or underutilized.

We may be limited in the portion of our net operating loss carryforwards that we can use in the future to offset taxable income for U.S. federal and state income tax purposes. As of December 31, 2016, we had U.S. federal and state net operating loss carryforwards, or NOLs, of $198.4 million and $59.9 million, respectively, which expire in various years beginning in 2028. If we do not earn sufficient taxable income in the future, our NOLs may expire unutilized or underutilized. In addition, under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, or the Code, a corporation that undergoes an “ownership change” is subject to limitations on its ability to utilize its existing NOLs to offset future taxable income. We may have experienced “ownership changes” under Section 382 of the Code in the past, and subsequent changes in ownership of our stock, including by reason of this or future offerings, as well as other changes that may be outside of our control, could result in future ownership changes under Section 382 of the Code. If we are or become subject to limitations on our use of NOLs under Section 382 of the Code, our NOLs could expire unutilized or underutilized, even if we earn taxable income against which our NOLs could otherwise be offset. Our NOLs may also be impaired under similar provisions of state law. We have recorded a full valuation allowance related to our NOLs in our financial statements and other net deferred tax assets due to the uncertainty of the ultimate realization of the future benefits of those assets.

Comprehensive tax reform bills could adversely affect our business and financial condition.

The U.S. government recently enacted comprehensive tax legislation that includes significant changes to the taxation of business entities. These changes include, among others, (i) a permanent reduction to the corporate income tax rate, (ii) a partial limitation on the deductibility of business interest expense, (iii) a shift of the U.S. taxation of multinational corporations from a tax on worldwide income to a territorial system (along with certain rules designed to prevent erosion of the U.S. income tax base) and (iv) a one-time tax on accumulated offshore earnings held in cash and illiquid assets, with the latter taxed at a lower rate. Notwithstanding the reduction in the corporate income tax rate, the overall impact of this tax reform is uncertain, and our business and financial condition could be adversely affected. This prospectus does not discuss any such tax legislation or the manner in which it might affect purchasers of our common stock. We urge our stockholders to consult with their legal and tax advisors with respect to any such legislation and the potential tax consequences of investing in our common stock.

Unfavorable conditions in the global economy or the vertical markets we serve could limit our ability to grow our business and negatively affect our operating results.

General worldwide economic conditions have experienced significant instability in recent years. These conditions make it extremely difficult for marketers and us to accurately forecast and plan future business activities, and could cause marketers to reduce or delay their marketing spending. Historically, economic downturns have resulted in overall reductions in marketing spending. If macroeconomic conditions deteriorate or are characterized by uncertainty or volatility, marketers may curtail or freeze spending on marketing in general and for services such as ours specifically.

In addition, our business may be materially and adversely affected by weak economic conditions in the specific vertical markets that we serve. We have historically generated a substantial majority of our revenue from marketers in the restaurant, brick and mortar retail, telecommunications and cable industries. We cannot predict the timing, strength or duration of any economic slowdown or recovery. In addition, even if the overall economy is robust, we cannot assure you that the market for services such as ours will experience growth or that we will experience growth.

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Future acquisitions could disrupt our business and adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.

We may choose to expand by making acquisitions that could be material to our business, financial condition or operating results. Our ability as an organization to successfully acquire and integrate technologies or businesses is unproven. Acquisitions involve many risks, including the following:

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

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Natural or man-made disasters and other similar events may significantly disrupt our business, and negatively impact our business, financial condition and operating results.

A significant portion of our employee base, operating facilities and infrastructure are centralized in Atlanta, Georgia. Any of our facilities may be harmed or rendered inoperable by natural or man-made disasters, including earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, floods, nuclear disasters, acts of terrorism or other criminal activities, infectious disease outbreaks and power outages, which may render it difficult or impossible for us to operate our business for some period of time. Our facilities would likely be costly to repair or replace, and any such efforts would likely require substantial time. Any disruptions in our operations could negatively impact our business, financial condition and operating results, and harm our reputation. In addition, we may not carry business insurance or may not carry sufficient business insurance to compensate for losses that may occur. Any such losses or damages could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results. In addition, the facilities of significant marketers, FI partners or third-party data providers may be harmed or rendered inoperable by such natural or man-made disasters, which may cause disruptions, difficulties or material adverse effects on our business.

We may require additional capital to support growth, and such capital might not be available on terms acceptable to us, if at all, which may in turn hamper our growth and adversely affect our business.

We intend to continue to make investments to support our business growth and may require additional funds to respond to business challenges, including the need to develop new solutions or enhance our solutions, improve our operating infrastructure or acquire complementary businesses and technologies. Accordingly, we may need to engage in equity, equity-linked or debt financings to secure additional funds. If we raise additional funds through future issuances of equity or equity-linked securities, including convertible debt securities, our existing stockholders could suffer significant dilution, and any new equity securities that we issue could have rights, preferences and privileges superior to those of holders of our common stock. Any debt financing that we secure in the future could involve restrictive covenants relating to our capital-raising activities and other financial and operational matters, including the ability to pay dividends or repurchase shares of our capital stock. This may make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital, to pursue business opportunities, including potential acquisitions, or to return capital to our stockholders. We also may not be able to obtain additional financing on terms favorable to us, if at all. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing or financing on terms satisfactory to us when we require it, our ability to continue to support our business growth, service our indebtedness and respond to business challenges could be significantly impaired, and our business may be adversely affected.

If we are not able to maintain and enhance our brand, our business, financial condition and operating results may be adversely affected.

We believe that developing and maintaining awareness of the Cardlytics brand in a cost-effective manner is critical to achieving widespread acceptance of our existing solutions and future solutions and is an important element in attracting new marketers and FI partners. Furthermore, we believe that the importance of brand recognition will increase as competition in our market increases. Successful promotion of our brand will depend largely on the effectiveness of our marketing efforts and on our ability to deliver valuable solutions for our marketers, their agencies and our FI partners. In the past, our efforts to build our brand have involved significant expense. Brand promotion activities may not yield increased revenue, and even if they do, any increased revenue may not offset the expenses that we incurred in building our brand. If we fail to successfully promote and maintain our brand, or incur substantial expenses in an unsuccessful attempt to promote and maintain our brand, we may fail to attract enough new marketers or FI partners or retain our existing marketer or FI partners and our business could suffer.

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Risks Related to Regulatory and Intellectual Property Matters

Regulatory, legislative or self-regulatory developments regarding internet privacy matters could adversely affect our ability to conduct our business.

We, our FI partners and our marketers are subject to a number of domestic and international laws and regulations that apply to online services and the internet generally. These laws, rules and regulations address a range of issues including data privacy and cyber security, and restrictions or technological requirements regarding the collection, use, storage, protection, retention or transfer of data.

In the United States, the rules and regulations to which we, directly or contractually through our FI partners, or our marketers may be subject include those promulgated under the authority of the Federal Trade Commission, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and state cyber security and breach notification laws, as well as regulator enforcement positions and expectations reflected in federal and state regulatory actions, settlements, consent decrees and guidance documents. Internationally, virtually every jurisdiction in which we operate has established its own data security and privacy legal frameworks with which we, directly or contractually through our FI partners, or our marketers may be required to comply, including the Data Protection Directive established in the European Union. Further, many federal, state and foreign government bodies and agencies have introduced, and are currently considering, additional laws and regulations. If passed, we will likely incur additional expenses and costs associated with complying with such laws. The costs of compliance with, and other burdens imposed by, the laws, rules, regulations and policies that are applicable to the businesses of our FI partners or marketers may limit the use and adoption of, and reduce the overall demand for, our solutions.

These existing and proposed laws, regulations and industry standards can be costly to comply with and can delay or impede the development of new solutions, result in negative publicity and reputational harm, increase our operating costs, require significant management time and attention, increase our risk of non-compliance and subject us to claims or other remedies, including fines or demands that we modify or cease existing business practices.

Legislation and regulation of online businesses, including privacy and data protection regimes, is expansive, not clearly defined and rapidly evolving. Such regulation could create unexpected costs, subject us to enforcement actions for compliance failures, or restrict portions of our business or cause us to change our business model.

Government regulation and industry standards may increase the costs of doing business online. Federal, state, municipal and foreign governments and agencies have adopted and could in the future adopt, modify, apply or enforce laws, policies, regulations and standards covering user privacy, data security, technologies such as cookies that are used to collect, store and/or process data, online marketing, the use of data to inform marketing, the taxation of products and services, unfair and deceptive practices, and the collection (including the collection of information), use, processing, transfer, storage and/or disclosure of data associated with unique individual internet users.

Although we have not collected or retained data that is traditionally considered PII under U.S. law, such as names, email addresses, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, credit card numbers, financial data or health data, we typically do collect and store IP addresses and other device identifiers, which are or may be considered personal data in some jurisdictions or otherwise may be the subject of legislation or regulation. Furthermore, we may elect to use PII in the future for our current solutions or solutions we may introduce. In addition, certain U.S. laws impose requirements on the collection and use of information from or about users or their devices. Other existing laws may in the future be revised, or new laws may be passed, to impose more stringent requirements on the use of identifiers to collect user information, including information of the type that we collect. Changes in regulations could affect the type of data that we may collect; restrict our ability to use

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identifiers to collect information, and, thus, affect our ability to actually collect that information; the costs of doing business online, and, therefore, the demand for our solutions; the ability to expand or operate our business; and harm our business.

In particular, there has been increasing public and regulatory concern and public scrutiny about the use of PII. Because the interpretation and application of privacy and data protection laws are still uncertain, it is possible that these laws may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our existing data management practices or our solutions or that the definition of “PII” is expanded in the future. If this is the case, in addition to the possibility of fines, lawsuits and other claims, we could be required to fundamentally change our business activities and practices or modify our solutions, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or operating results. Any inability to adequately address privacy concerns, even if unfounded, or comply with applicable privacy or data protection laws, regulations, policies or standards could result in additional cost and liability to us; damage our reputation; affect our ability to attract new marketers and FI partners and maintain relationships with our existing marketers and FI partners; and adversely affect our business, financial condition or operating results. Privacy and security concerns, whether valid or not, may inhibit market adoption of our solutions.

U.S. and non-U.S. regulators also may implement “Do-Not-Track” legislation, particularly if the industry does not implement a standard. Effective January 1, 2014, the California Governor signed into law an amendment to the California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003. Such amendment requires operators of commercial websites and online service providers, under certain circumstances, to disclose in their privacy policies how such operators and providers respond to browser “do not track” signals.

Some of our activities may also be subject to the laws of foreign jurisdictions, whether or not we are established or based in such jurisdictions. Within the European Union, or EU, where we currently have an active presence in the United Kingdom, Directive 2009/136/EC, commonly referred to as the “Cookie Directive,” directs EU member states to ensure that accessing information on an internet user’s computer, such as through a cookie, is allowed only if the internet user has given his or her consent. In response, some member states have implemented legislation requiring entities to obtain the user’s consent before placing cookies for targeted marketing purposes.

In the United Kingdom, for example, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2011, or PECR, implement the requirements of Directive 2009/136/EC (which amended Directive 2002/58/EC), which is known as the ePrivacy Directive. The PECR regulates various types of electronic direct marketing that use cookies and similar technologies. The PECR also imposes sector-specific breach reporting requirements, but only as applicable to providers of particular public electronic communications services. Additional EU member state laws of this type may follow.

We may be required to, or otherwise may determine that it is advisable to, develop or obtain additional tools and technologies to compensate for a potential lack of cookie data. Even if we are able to do so, such additional tools may be subject to further regulation, time consuming to develop or costly to obtain, and less effective than our current use of cookies. In addition, certain information, such as IP addresses as collected and used by us may constitute “personal data” in certain non-U.S. jurisdictions, including in the United Kingdom, and therefore certain of our activities could be subject to EU laws applicable to the processing and use of personal data.

More generally, the regulatory framework for online services and data privacy and security issues worldwide can vary substantially from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, is rapidly evolving and is likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future. Many federal, state and foreign government bodies and agencies have adopted or are considering adopting laws, rules, regulations and standards regarding the collection, use, storage and disclosure of information, web browsing and geolocation data collection and data analytics. Interpretation of these laws, rules and regulations and their application to our solutions in the U.S. and foreign jurisdictions is ongoing and cannot be fully determined at this time.

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In addition, the regulatory environment for the collection and use of consumer data by marketers is evolving in the United States and internationally and is currently a self-regulatory framework, which relies on market participants to ensure self-compliance. The voluntary nature of this self-regulatory framework may change.

The United States and foreign governments have enacted, considered or are considering legislation or regulations that could significantly restrict industry participants’ ability to collect, augment, analyze, use and share anonymous data, such as by regulating the level of consumer notice and consent required before a company can place cookies or other tracking technologies. A number of existing bills are pending in the U.S. Congress that contain provisions that would regulate how companies can use cookies and other tracking technologies to collect and utilize user information.

In addition to government regulation, privacy advocates and industry groups may propose new and different self-regulatory standards that either legally or contractually apply to us. We may also be subject to claims of liability or responsibility for the actions of third parties with whom we interact or upon whom we rely in relation to various solutions, including but not limited to our marketers and their agencies and our FI partners. If this were to occur, in addition to the possibility of fines, lawsuits and other claims, we could be required to fundamentally change our business activities and practices or modify our solutions, which could have an adverse effect on our business. Any inability to adequately address privacy and security concerns, even if unfounded, or comply with applicable privacy or data protection laws, regulations and policies, could result in additional cost and liability to us, damage our reputation, inhibit sales and adversely affect our business.

In addition, if we were to gain knowledge that we inadvertently received PII from our FI partners, our failure to comply with applicable laws and regulations, or to protect personal data, could result in enforcement action against us, including fines, imprisonment of our officers and public censure, claims for damages by consumers and other affected individuals, damage to our reputation and loss of goodwill, any of which could have a material adverse impact on our operations, financial performance and business. Even the perception of privacy or security concerns, whether or not valid, may harm our reputation and inhibit adoption of our solution by current and future marketers and marketing agencies.

If the use of matching technologies, such as cookies, pixels and device identifiers, is rejected by internet users, restricted or otherwise subject to unfavorable terms, such as by non-governmental entities, our performance may decline and we may lose customers and revenue.

Our solutions may use matching technologies, such as cookies, pixels and device identifiers, to match the Cardlytics IDs we have assigned to our FIs’ customers with their digital presence outside of the FI partners’ websites and mobile applications. Our matching technologies may sometimes be “third-party cookies” because they are placed on individual browsers when internet users visit a website that is not part of the Cardlytics.com domain. These matching technologies are placed through an internet browser on an internet user’s computer and correspond with a data set that we retain on our servers. Our matching technologies only record anonymized information and the date that the matching technology was last refreshed. When our matching technologies are present and a user is exposed to marketing content targeted or deployed with our solutions, we are able to gain insight into that user’s interaction with the marketing content. If our access to matching technology data is reduced, our ability to conduct our business in the current manner may be affected and thus undermine the effectiveness of our solutions.

Internet users may easily block and/or delete cookies (e.g., through their browsers or “ad blocking” software). The most commonly used internet browsers allow internet users to modify their browser settings to prevent cookies from being accepted by their browsers, or are set to block third-party cookies by default. If more browser manufacturers and internet users adopt these settings or delete their cookies more frequently than they currently do, our business could be negatively affected. Some government regulators and privacy advocates have suggested creating a “Do Not Track” standard that would allow internet users to express a preference, independent of cookie settings in their browser, not to have website browsing recorded. If internet users adopt a

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“Do Not Track” browser setting and the standard either gets imposed by state or federal legislation or agreed upon by standard-setting groups, it may curtail or prohibit us from using non-personal data as we currently do. This could hinder growth of marketing on the internet generally, and cause us to change our business practices and adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.

In addition, browser manufacturers could replace cookies with their own product and require us to negotiate and pay them for use of such product to record information about internet users’ interactions with our marketers, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms, or at all.

Failure to protect our proprietary technology and intellectual property rights could substantially harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

Our future success and competitive position depend in part on our ability to protect our intellectual property and proprietary technologies. To safeguard these rights, we rely on a combination of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret laws and contractual protections in the United States and other jurisdictions, all of which provide only limited protection and may not now or in the future provide us with a competitive advantage.

As of September 30, 2017, we had three issued patents and 10 patent applications pending relating to our software. We cannot assure you that any patents will issue from any patent applications, that patents that issue from such applications will give us the protection that we seek or that any such patents will not be challenged, invalidated, or circumvented. Any patents that may issue in the future from our pending or future patent applications may not provide sufficiently broad protection and may not be enforceable in actions against alleged infringers. We have registered the “Cardlytics” name and logo in the United States and certain other countries. We have registrations and/or pending applications for additional marks in the United States and other countries; however, we cannot assure you that any future trademark registrations will be issued for pending or future applications or that any registered trademarks will be enforceable or provide adequate protection of our proprietary rights. We also license software from third parties for integration into our products, including open source software and other software available on commercially reasonable terms. We cannot assure you that such third parties will maintain such software or continue to make it available.

In order to protect our unpatented proprietary technologies and processes, we rely on trade secret laws and confidentiality agreements with our employees, consultants, vendors and others. Despite our efforts to protect our proprietary technology and trade secrets, unauthorized parties may attempt to misappropriate, reverse engineer or otherwise obtain and use them. Bank of America also has the right to purchase a license to the source code underlying Cardlytics Direct upon the occurrence of specified events and for a specified fee, which could compromise the proprietary nature of our platform, allow Bank of America to develop in-house solutions and discontinue their use of our solutions and/or allow Bank of America to develop and sell a solution similar to Cardlytics Direct.

In addition, others may independently discover our trade secrets, in which case we would not be able to assert trade secret rights, or develop similar technologies and processes. Further, the contractual provisions that we enter into may not prevent unauthorized use or disclosure of our proprietary technology or intellectual property rights and may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of unauthorized use or disclosure of our proprietary technology or intellectual property rights. Moreover, policing unauthorized use of our technologies, trade secrets and intellectual property is difficult, expensive and time-consuming, particularly in foreign countries where the laws may not be as protective of intellectual property rights as those in the United States and where mechanisms for enforcement of intellectual property rights may be weak. We may be unable to determine the extent of any unauthorized use or infringement of our solutions, technologies or intellectual property rights.

From time to time, legal action by us may be necessary to enforce our patents and other intellectual property rights, to protect our trade secrets, to determine the validity and scope of the intellectual property rights of others or to defend against claims of infringement or invalidity. Such legal action could result in substantial costs and diversion of resources and could negatively affect our business, financial condition and operating results.

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Assertions by third parties of infringement or other violations by us of their intellectual property rights, whether or not correct, could result in significant costs and harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

Patent and other intellectual property disputes are common in our industry. We have in the past and may in the future be subject to claims alleging that we have misappropriated, misused, or infringed other parties’ intellectual property rights. Some companies, including certain of our competitors, own larger numbers of patents, copyrights and trademarks than we do, which they may use to assert claims against us. Third parties may also assert claims of intellectual property rights infringement against our FI partners, whom we are typically required to indemnify. As the numbers of solutions and competitors in our market increases and overlap occurs, claims of infringement, misappropriation and other violations of intellectual property rights may increase. Any claim of infringement, misappropriation or other violation of intellectual property rights by a third party, even those without merit, could cause us to incur substantial costs defending against the claim and could distract our management from our business.

The patent portfolios of our most significant competitors are larger than ours. This disparity may increase the risk that they may sue us for patent infringement and may limit our ability to counterclaim for patent infringement or settle through patent cross-licenses. In addition, future assertions of patent rights by third parties, and any resulting litigation, may involve patent holding companies or other adverse patent owners who have no relevant product revenues and against whom our own patents may therefore provide little or no deterrence or protection. There can be no assurance that we will not be found to infringe or otherwise violate any third-party intellectual property rights or to have done so in the past.

An adverse outcome of a dispute may require us to:

In addition, royalty or licensing agreements, if required or desirable, may be unavailable on terms acceptable to us, or at all, and may require significant royalty payments and other expenditures. Some licenses may also be non-exclusive, and therefore our competitors may have access to the same technology licensed to us. Any of the foregoing events could seriously harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

Our use of open source software could negatively affect our ability to sell our solutions and subject us to possible litigation.

We use open source software to deliver our solutions and expect to continue to use open source software in the future. Some of these open source licenses may require that source code subject to the license be made available to the public and that any modifications or derivative works to open source software continue to be licensed under open source licenses. This may require that we make certain proprietary code available under an open source license. We may face claims from others claiming ownership of, or seeking to enforce the license terms applicable to such open source software, including by demanding release of the open source software, derivative works or our proprietary source code that was developed using such software. Few of the licenses applicable to

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open source software have been interpreted by courts, and there is a risk that these licenses could be construed in a manner that could impose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to commercialize our products. These claims could also result in litigation, require us to purchase costly licenses or require us to devote additional research and development resources to change the software underlying our solutions, any of which would have a negative effect on our business, financial condition and operating results and may not be possible in a timely manner. We and our customers may also be subject to suits by parties claiming infringement due to the reliance by our solutions on certain open source software, and such litigation could be costly for us to defend or subject us to an injunction. In addition, if the license terms for the open source code change, we may be forced to re-engineer our software or incur additional costs. Finally, we cannot assure you that we have not incorporated open source software into the software underlying our solutions in a manner that may subject our proprietary software to an open source license that requires disclosure, to customers or the public, of the source code to such proprietary software. In the event that portions of our proprietary technology are determined to be subject to an open source license, we could be required to publicly release portions of our source code, re-engineer all or a portion of our technologies, or otherwise be limited in the licensing of our technologies, each of which could reduce or eliminate the value of our solutions and technologies and materially and adversely affect our ability to sustain and grow our business. Many open source licenses also limit our ability to bring patent infringement lawsuits against open source software that we use without losing our right to use such open source software. Therefore, the use of open source software may limit our ability to bring patent infringement lawsuits, to the extent we ever have any patents that cover open source software that we use.

We are subject to government regulation, including import, export, economic sanctions and anti-corruption laws and regulations that may expose us to liability and increase our costs.

Various of our products are subject to U.S. export controls, including the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Export Administration Regulations and economic and trade sanctions regulations administered by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls. These regulations may limit the export of our products and provision of our solutions outside of the United States, or may require export authorizations, including by license, a license exception or other appropriate government authorizations, including annual or semi-annual reporting and the filing of an encryption registration. Export control and economic sanctions laws may also include prohibitions on the sale or supply of certain of our products to embargoed or sanctioned countries, regions, governments, persons and entities. In addition, various countries regulate the importation of certain products, through import permitting and licensing requirements, and have enacted laws that could limit our ability to distribute our products. The exportation, reexportation, and importation of our products and the provision of solutions, including by our partners, must comply with these laws or else we may be adversely affected, through reputational harm, government investigations, penalties and a denial or curtailment of our ability to export our products or provide solutions. Complying with export control and sanctions laws may be time consuming and may result in the delay or loss of sales opportunities. Although we take precautions to prevent our products from being provided in violation of such laws, our products may have previously been, and could in the future be, provided inadvertently in violation of such laws, despite the precautions we take. If we are found to be in violation of U.S. sanctions or export control laws, it could result in substantial fines and penalties for us and for the individuals working for us. Changes in export or import laws or corresponding sanctions, may delay the introduction and sale of our products in international markets, or, in some cases, prevent the export or import of our products to certain countries, regions, governments, persons or entities altogether, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are also subject to various domestic and international anti-corruption laws, such as the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the U.K. Bribery Act, as well as other similar anti-bribery and anti-kickback laws and regulations. These laws and regulations generally prohibit companies and their employees and intermediaries from authorizing, offering or providing improper payments or benefits to officials and other recipients for improper purposes. We rely on certain third parties to support our sales and regulatory compliance efforts and can be held liable for their corrupt or other illegal activities, even if we do not explicitly authorize or have actual

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knowledge of such activities. Although we take precautions to prevent violations of these laws, our exposure for violating these laws increases as our international presence expands and as we increase sales and operations in foreign jurisdictions.

Risks Related to Our Common Stock and this Offering

Our stock price may be volatile, and you may lose some or all of your investment.

The initial public offering price for the shares of our common stock will be determined by negotiations between us and the representatives of the underwriters and may not be indicative of the market price of our common stock following this offering. The market price of our common stock may be highly volatile and may fluctuate substantially as a result of a variety of factors, some of which are related in complex ways, including:

Recently, the stock markets have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the market prices of equity securities of many companies. These fluctuations have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. Broad market and industry fluctuations, as well as general economic, political, regulatory and market conditions, may negatively impact the market price of our common stock. If the market price of our common stock after this offering does not exceed the initial public offering price, you may lose some or all of your investment. In the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their securities have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future, which could result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention.

No public market for our common stock currently exists and an active public trading market may not develop or be sustained following this offering.

No public market for our common stock currently exists. We intend to apply to list our common stock on the Nasdaq Global Market, or Nasdaq, but an active public trading market may not develop following the completion of this offering or, if developed, may not be sustained. The lack of an active market may impair your ability to sell your shares at the time you wish to sell them or at a price that you consider reasonable. The lack of an active market may also reduce the fair value of your shares. An inactive market may also impair our ability to raise

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capital to continue to fund operations by selling shares and may impair our ability to acquire other companies or technologies by using our shares as consideration.

You will experience immediate and substantial dilution in the net tangible book value of the shares of common stock you purchase in this offering.

The initial public offering price of our common stock will be substantially higher than the pro forma net tangible book value per share of our common stock, as of September 30, 2017, immediately after this offering. Therefore, if you purchase shares of our common stock in this offering, you will suffer immediate dilution of $        per share, or $        per share if the underwriters exercise their over-allotment option in full, in net tangible book value after giving effect to the sale of common stock in this offering at the initial public offering price of $        per share. See “Dilution.” If outstanding options or warrants to purchase our common stock are exercised in the future, you will experience additional dilution.

We may invest or spend the proceeds of this offering in ways with which you may not agree or in ways which may not yield a return.

We anticipate that the net proceeds from this offering will be used for working capital and other general corporate purposes. We may also use a portion of the net proceeds to acquire complementary businesses, products or technologies. However, we do not have any agreements or commitments for any acquisitions at this time. Our management will have considerable discretion in the application of the net proceeds, and you will not have the opportunity, as part of your investment decision, to assess whether the proceeds are being used effectively. The net proceeds may be invested with a view towards long-term benefits for our stockholders and this may not increase our operating results or market value. The failure by our management to apply these funds effectively may adversely affect the return on your investment.

We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future and, as a result, your ability to achieve a return on your investment will depend on appreciation in the price of our common stock.

We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our common stock and do not intend to pay any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. We anticipate that we will retain all of our future earnings for use in the development of our business and for general corporate purposes. Any determination to pay dividends in the future will be at the discretion of our board of directors. Accordingly, investors must rely on sales of their common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investments.

Concentration of ownership among our existing directors, executive officers and holders of 5% or more of our outstanding common stock may prevent new investors from influencing significant corporate decisions.

Following this offering, our directors, executive officers and holders of more than 5% of our common stock, some of whom are represented on our board of directors, together with their affiliates will beneficially own     % of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock. As a result, these stockholders will, immediately following this offering, be able to determine the outcome of matters submitted to our stockholders for approval. Some of these persons or entities may have interests that are different from yours, and this ownership could affect the value of your shares of common stock if, for example, these stockholders elect to delay, defer or prevent a change in corporate control, merger, consolidation, takeover or other business combination. This concentration of ownership may also adversely affect the market price of our common stock.

Future sales of our common stock in the public market could cause our share price to decline.

After this offering, there will be              shares of our common stock outstanding, assuming no exercise of the underwriters’ over-allotment option. Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market after this offering, or the perception that these sales might occur, could depress the market price of our

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common stock and could impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional equity securities. Of our issued and outstanding shares of our common stock, all of the shares sold in this offering will be freely transferable without restrictions or further registration under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act, except for any shares acquired by our affiliates, as defined in Rule 144 under the Securities Act. The remaining              shares outstanding after this offering will be restricted as a result of securities laws, lock-up agreements or other contractual restrictions that restrict transfers for 180 days after the date of this prospectus.

Additionally, following the completion of this offering, stockholders holding approximately     % of our common stock outstanding, will, after the expiration of the lock-up periods specified above, have the right, subject to various conditions and limitations, to include their shares of our common stock in registration statements relating to our securities. If the offer and sale of these shares are registered, they will be freely tradable without restriction under the Securities Act. Shares of common stock sold under such registration statements can be freely sold in the public market. In the event such registration rights are exercised and a large number of shares of common stock are sold in the public market, such sales could reduce the trading price of our common stock. See “Description of Capital Stock—Registration Rights” and “Shares Eligible for Future Sale—Lock-Up Agreements” for a more detailed description of these registration rights and the lock-up period.

We intend to file a registration statement on Form S-8 under the Securities Act to register the total number of shares of our common stock that may be issued under our equity incentive plans. See “Shares Eligible for Future Sale—Form S-8 Registration Statements” for a more detailed description of the shares of common stock that will be available for future sale upon the registration and issuance of such shares, subject to any applicable vesting or lock-up period or other restrictions provided under the terms of the applicable plan and/or the option agreements entered into with the option holders. In addition, in the future we may issue common stock or other securities if we need to raise additional capital. The number of new shares of our common stock issued in connection with raising additional capital could constitute a material portion of the then outstanding shares of our common stock.

If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, or publish negative reports about our business, our stock price and trading volume could decline.

The trading market for our common stock will depend, in part, on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. We do not have any control over these analysts. If our financial performance fails to meet analyst estimates or one or more of the analysts who cover us downgrade our stock or change their opinion of our business or market value, our share price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of us or fail to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which could cause our share price or trading volume to decline.

Our reported financial results may be adversely affected by changes in accounting principles generally accepted in the United States.

Generally accepted accounting principles in the United States, or U.S. GAAP, are subject to interpretation by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, or FASB, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, and various bodies formed to promulgate and interpret appropriate accounting principles. A change in these principles or interpretations could have a significant effect on our reported financial results, and could affect the reporting of transactions completed before the announcement of a change.

In particular, in May 2014, the FASB issued ASU No. 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606), which supersedes the revenue recognition requirements in ASC 605, Revenue Recognition. The core principle of ASU 2014-09 is that an entity should recognize revenue to depict the transfer of promised goods or services to customers in an amount that reflects the consideration to which the entity expects to be entitled in exchange for those goods or services. As an “emerging growth company,” the Jumpstart our Business Startups Act of 2012, or JOBS Act, allows us to delay adoption of new or revised accounting pronouncements applicable

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to public companies until such pronouncements are made applicable to private companies. We have elected to use this extended transition period under the JOBS Act with respect to ASU 2014-09, which will result in ASU 2014-09 becoming applicable to us on January 1, 2019. We are evaluating ASU 2014-09 and have not determined the impact it may have on our financial reporting.

We are an “emerging growth company” and we cannot be certain if the reduced disclosure requirements applicable to emerging growth companies will make our common stock less attractive to investors.

We are an “emerging growth company,” as defined in the JOBS Act and we may take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not “emerging growth companies” including, but not limited to, the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, or Section 404, 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 stockholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. We cannot predict if investors will find our common stock less attractive if we choose to rely on these exemptions. If some investors find our common stock less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our common stock and our stock price may be more volatile.

As an “emerging growth company,” the JOBS Act allows us to delay adoption of new or revised accounting pronouncements applicable to public companies until such pronouncements are made applicable to private companies. We have elected to use this extended transition period under the JOBS Act. As a result, our consolidated financial statements may not be comparable to the financial statements of issuers who are required to comply with the effective dates for new or revised accounting standards that are applicable to public companies, which may make our common stock less attractive to investors.

We will incur increased costs as a result of operating as a public company, and our management will be required to devote substantial time to compliance with our public company responsibilities and corporate governance practices.

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

As a result of becoming a public company, we will be obligated to develop and maintain proper and effective internal controls over financial reporting and any failure to maintain the adequacy of these internal controls may adversely affect investor confidence in our company and, as a result, the value of our common stock.

We will be required, pursuant to Section 404, to furnish a report by management on, among other things, the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting for the first fiscal year beginning after the effective date of this offering. This assessment will need to include disclosure of any material weaknesses identified by our management in our internal control over financial reporting. Our independent registered public accounting firm will not be required to attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting until our first annual report required to be filed with the SEC following the date we are no longer an “emerging growth company,” as defined in the JOBS Act. We will be required to disclose significant changes made in our internal control procedures on a quarterly basis.

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We have commenced the costly and challenging process of compiling the system and processing documentation necessary to perform the evaluation needed to comply with Section 404, and we may not be able to complete our evaluation, testing and any required remediation in a timely fashion. Our compliance with Section 404 will require that we incur substantial accounting expense and expend significant management efforts. We currently do not have an internal audit group, and we may need to hire additional accounting and financial staff with appropriate public company experience and technical accounting knowledge and compile the system and process documentation necessary to perform the evaluation needed to comply with Section 404.

During the evaluation and testing process of our internal controls, if we identify one or more material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting, we will be unable to assert that our internal control over financial reporting is effective. We cannot assure you that there will not be material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting in the future. Any failure to maintain internal control over financial reporting could severely inhibit our ability to accurately report our financial condition and operating results. If we are unable to conclude that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, or if our independent registered public accounting firm determines we have a material weakness or significant deficiency in our internal control over financial reporting, we could lose investor confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, the market price of our common stock could decline, and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by the SEC or other regulatory authorities. Failure to remedy any material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting, or to implement or maintain other effective control systems required of public companies, could also restrict our future access to the capital markets.

Anti-takeover provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could make an acquisition of us more difficult, limit attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management and limit the market price of our common stock.

Provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws, as will be in effect upon the completion of this offering, may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change in control or changes in our management. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws will include provisions that:

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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, because we are incorporated in Delaware, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which generally prohibits a Delaware corporation from engaging in any of a broad range of business combinations with any “interested” stockholder for a period of three years following the date on which the stockholder became an “interested” stockholder. Any of the foregoing provisions could limit the price that investors might be willing to pay in the future for shares of our common stock, and they could deter potential acquirers of our company, thereby reducing the likelihood that you would receive a premium for your shares of our common stock in an acquisition.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will designate the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware as the exclusive forum for certain litigation that may be initiated by our stockholders, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us.

Pursuant to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, as will be in effect upon the completion of this offering, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware will be the sole and exclusive forum for (1) any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf, (2) 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, (3) any action asserting a claim arising pursuant to any provision of the Delaware General Corporation Law, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation or our amended and restated bylaws or (4) any action asserting a claim governed by the internal affairs doctrine. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will further provide that any person or entity purchasing or otherwise acquiring any interest in shares of our common stock is deemed to have notice of and consented to the foregoing provision. The forum selection clause in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation may limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us.

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