Kornit Digital (KRNT) Risk Analysis

We are currently subject to securities class action litigation (as described below in "ITEM 8.A Financial Information- Legal Proceedings- Securities Class Action Lawsuit") and could be subject to further litigation in the future. We can provide no assurance as to the outcome of any current or future lawsuits, and any such actions may result in judgments against us for significant damages. Resolution of any such matters can be prolonged and costly, and the ultimate results or judgments are uncertain due to the inherent uncertainty in litigation and other proceedings. Moreover, our potential liabilities are subject to change over time due to new developments, changes in settlement strategy or the impact of evidentiary requirements. Regardless of the outcome, litigation has resulted in the past, and may result in the future, in significant legal expenses and require significant attention and resources of management. As a result, any present or future litigation could result in losses, damages and expenses that have a significant adverse effect on our financial condition and profitability.

We are subject to income taxes principally in Israel, United States, Germany, Hong-Kong, United Kingdom, and Japan. Significant judgment is required in evaluating our uncertain tax positions and determining our provision for income taxes, and if the relevant tax authority does not agree with the positions that we take, we could be subject to tax audit and face significant tax liabilities, which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations. We were recently subject to such a tax audit for the years 2020 to 2021 by the Israeli Tax Authority, or ITA, in respect of which we ultimately reached a settlement with the ITA. We account for income taxes in accordance with ASC 740, "Income Taxes." ASC 740, which prescribes the use of the liability method, whereby deferred tax asset and liability account balances are determined based on differences between financial reporting and tax basis of assets and liabilities are measured using the enacted tax rates that will be in effect when the differences are expected to reverse. We account for uncertain tax positions in accordance with ASC 740-10 two-step approach to recognizing and measuring uncertain tax positions. The first step is to evaluate the tax position taken or expected to be taken in a tax return by determining if the weight of available evidence indicates that it is more likely than not that, on an evaluation of the technical merits, the tax position will be sustained on audit, including resolution of any related appeals or litigation processes. The second step is to measure the tax benefit as the largest amount that is more than 50% (cumulative probability) likely to be realized upon ultimate settlement. We currently maintain reserves for uncertain tax positions. If the potential tax liabilities in respect of which we have taken these reserves exceed the amount of those reserves, that may have a material adverse effect on our results of operations. For more information on our tax positions please refer to Note 14 to our financial statements that appear in Item 18 of this annual report.

We manufacture our ink and other consumables at our new, modern facility in Kiryat Gat, Israel, and our curing systems are manufactured in Tesoma's facilities. We also rely on contract manufacturing services provided by Flex, and Sanmina-SCI Israel Medical Systems Ltd. which are also in Israel, to assemble our systems. We expect that almost all of our revenues in the near term will be derived from the systems and ink and other consumables manufactured at these facilities. The loss of any of these contract manufacturers could result in the delay of the assembly and delivery of our systems. If that occurs or these contract manufacturers cease to provide manufacturing services for any reason, the costs associated with developing alternative sources of assembly in a timely manner could have a material adverse effect on our ability to meet demand for our solutions. Our ability to generate revenues could be impaired, market acceptance of our solutions could be adversely affected, and customers may instead purchase or use alternative products. If operations in any of these facilities were to be disrupted due to a major equipment failure or power failure lasting beyond the capabilities of backup generators or other events outside of our reasonable control, our manufacturing capacity could be shut down for an extended period, we could experience a loss of raw materials or finished goods inventory and our ability to operate our business would be harmed. In addition, in any such event, the repair or reconstruction of our or our third-party manufacturers' manufacturing facilities and storage facilities could take a significant amount of time. During this period, we or our third-party manufacturers would be unable to manufacture some or all of our systems or we may not be able to produce our ink and other consumables.

We generally enter into non-competition agreements with our employees. These agreements prohibit our employees, if they cease working for us, from competing directly with us or working for our competitors or clients for a limited period. We may be unable to enforce these agreements under the laws of the jurisdictions in which our employees work and it may be difficult for us to restrict our competitors from benefiting from the expertise that our former employees or consultants developed while working for us. For example, Israeli labor courts have required employers seeking to enforce non-compete undertakings of a former employee to demonstrate that the competitive activities of the former employee will harm one of a limited number of material interests of the employer that have been recognized by the courts, such as the secrecy of a company's trade secrets or other intellectual property. If we cannot demonstrate that such interests will be harmed, we may be unable to prevent our competitors from benefiting from the expertise of our former employees or consultants and our ability to remain competitive may be diminished. As to our U.S. operations, on the U.S. federal level, there was movement in 2023 by federal agencies to make noncompete agreements unenforceable in general. The Federal Trade Commission proposed a new rule to ban employers nationwide from using non-compete agreements with their employees and independent contractors, and the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board issued a memo in March 2023 opining that many types of non-compete and non-solicitation restrictions unlawfully interfere with employees' protected rights under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. If any of these proposed new U.S. federal restrictions becomes effective, or if any state in which we have operations continues to expand restrictions or bans the use of non-compete restrictions, that could adversely impact our ability to protect our investment in our key employees in our U.S. locations, and harm our competitive position.

We maintain an inventory of parts to facilitate the timely assembly of our systems, production of our ink and other consumables, and servicing our installed base. Most components are available from multiple suppliers, although certain components used in our systems and ink and other consumables, such as our print heads and certain chemicals included in our inks, are only available from single or limited sources as described below. - The print heads for our systems are supplied by a sole supplier, FujiFilm Dimatix, Inc., or FDMX. We entered into an agreement with FDMX in 2015, pursuant to which FDMX sells us certain off-the-shelf print heads and additional products, all of which FDMX regularly sells to providers of inkjet systems. Under the agreement, as last amended on June 20, 2022, the initial term of the agreement will expire on December 31, 2025, and the agreement will automatically renew for an additional two-year period, unless either party notifies the other party at least 90 days prior to expiration of the initial term that it does not want such a renewal. The agreement provides that FDMX may increase the prices of the products that we purchase from it upon 180-days' prior notice at any time, subject to certain conditions. The agreement further provides that FDMX may, at its option, discontinue products supplied under the agreement, provided that we are given one-year notice of the planned discontinuance and are provided with an end-of-sale purchase program. - A chemical used in some of our inks is supplied by B.G. (Israel) Technologies Ltd., or BG Bond, a subsidiary of Ashtrom Ltd., a large public Israeli industrial company. The chemicals were previously supplied under a definitive agreement which has expired, and currently we purchase these chemicals on a purchase order basis. For most of our inks, another chemical is supplied by Brenntag a reseller of The Dow Chemical Company, a multinational producer of chemicals and other compounds. We currently purchase these chemicals on a purchase order basis. - Dispersing agents used in some of our inks are supplied by BASF SE, which to our knowledge is the only source of supply of those agents. We purchase these dispersing agents from BASF on a purchase order basis. We maintain safety stock of these chemicals in an amount which will allow us to continue our manufacturing for several fiscal quarters in case of discontinuation. - Several raw materials and pigments used in some of our inks are supplied by Heubach Group. We currently purchase these raw materials and pigments on a purchase order basis. We maintain safety stock of these raw materials and pigments in an amount which will allow us to continue our manufacturing for several fiscal quarters in case of discontinuation. We are currently in the process of entering into a long-term supply agreement with Heubach Group. - Certain parts of the control system of our systems are supplied by sole suppliers, Yaskawa Europe Technology Ltd., an affiliate of Yaskawa Electric Corporation, or Yaskawa, and Beckhoff Automation Limited. Our turnkey suppliers (Flex and Sanmina- SCI Israel Medical Systems Ltd.), which assemble the control system on our behalf, purchase those control system parts from Yaskawa and Beckhoff. We also purchase additional, spare control system parts from Yaskawa and Beckhoff for our service department on a purchase order basis. - Some of our printing systems are compatible with a dryer that we purchase from Adelco Screen Process, or Adelco, which fulfills most of the demand for that dryer. The dryer is supplied under an April 2019 agreement that we entered into with Adelco. The loss of any of these suppliers, or of a supplier for which there are limited other sources, could result in the delay of the manufacture and delivery of our systems or inks and other consumables. For instance, FDMX has from time to time indicated that it may discontinue manufacturing the print head that we currently source from it and use in our systems, although it has never provided notice that it is actually doing so. In the event FDMX discontinues manufacturing the print head, we would be required to qualify a new print head for our systems (based only on whatever knowledge we have gained from qualifying print heads in the past). In order to minimize the risk of any impact from a disruption or discontinuation in the supply of print heads, raw materials or other components from limited source suppliers, we maintain an additional inventory of such components, in addition to the end-of-life purchase program that would be available to us if the products we purchase from FDMX were discontinued. Nevertheless, such inventory may not be sufficient to enable us to continue supplying our products for a longer period, should we need to locate and qualify a new supplier. Other risks resulting from our reliance on suppliers include: - if we experience an increase in demand for our solutions, our suppliers may be unable to provide us with the components that we need in order to meet that increased demand in a timely manner;- our suppliers may encounter financial hardships unrelated to our demand for components, which could inhibit their ability to fulfill our orders and meet our requirements;- we may experience production delays related to the evaluation and testing of products from alternative suppliers;- we may be subject to price fluctuations due to a lack of long-term supply arrangements for key components;- we or our suppliers may lose access to critical services and components, resulting in an interruption in the manufacture, assembly and shipment of our systems or inks and other consumables; and - fluctuations in demand for components that our suppliers manufacture for others may affect their ability or willingness to deliver components to us in a timely manner. If any of these risks materializes, the costs associated with developing alternative sources of supply or assembly in a timely manner could have a material adverse effect on our ability to meet demand for our solutions; our ability to generate revenues could be impaired, market acceptance of our solutions could be adversely affected, and customers may instead purchase or use alternative products. We may not be able to find new or alternative components of a requisite quality or find that we are unable to reconfigure our systems and manufacturing processes in a timely manner if the necessary components become unavailable. As a result, we could incur increased production costs, experience delays in the delivery of our solutions and suffer harm to our reputation, which may have an adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

The principal competition for our direct to garment (DTG) systems comes from manufacturers of analog screen-printing systems, textile printers and ink, such as M&R Printing Equipment, Inc., Machines Highest Mechatronic GmbH and ROQ. Our principal competitor in the industrial digital DTG market is Aeoon Technologies GmbH. We also face some competition in this market from OvalJet, M&R, ROQ, Brother International Corporation, Seiko Epson Corporation, Ricoh Company Ltd. and a number of smaller competitors that offer industrial level production capacity through multiple entry level systems. More recently, we have noticed some adoption of commercial level direct-to-film printing methodologies, a sub-segment of traditional heat transfer, which are used as a complimentary solution to direct-to-garment printing for specific applications such as caps and surfaces on which it is difficult to print. Our competitors in the Direct-to-Fabric (also known as R2R), or DTF, market include: Dover Corporation through its MS Printing Solutions S.r.l. subsidiary; Seiko Epson Corporation through its subsidiary, Fratelli Robustelli S.r.l; Durst Phototechnik AG; Electronics for Imaging, Inc. through its Reggiani Macchine SpA subsidiary; and a number of smaller competitors. The principal competition for our KornitX global fulfillment network (GFN) offering which enables on-demand production of textiles and other goods, comes from a variety of virtual marketplaces that are offering certain fulfillment services or applications, or purpose-built direct API connectivity to specific fulfillers. Some of our current and potential competitors have larger overall installed bases, longer operating histories and greater name recognition than we have. In addition, many of these competitors have greater sales and marketing resources, more advanced manufacturing operations, broader distribution channels and greater customer support resources than we have. Some of our competitors in the DTF market gained their current market position by merging with, or acquiring, existing companies in the DTF market. Current and future competitors may be able to respond more quickly to changes in customer demands and devote greater resources to the development, promotion and sale of their printers and ink and other consumables than we can. Our current and potential competitors in both the direct-to-garment and direct-to-fabric markets may also develop and market new technologies that render our existing solutions unmarketable or less competitive. In addition, if these competitors develop products with similar or superior functionality to our solutions at prices comparable to or lower than ours, we may be forced to decrease the prices of our solutions in order to remain competitive, which could reduce our gross margins.

Our business model is favorably impacted by recurring sales of our ink and other consumables and spare parts for our existing and growing installed base of systems. Third-party ink and other consumables and spare parts might be less expensive or otherwise more appealing to our customers than our ink and other consumables, and spare parts. Significant sales of third-party inks and other consumables and spare parts to our customers would adversely impact our revenues and adversely impact our gross margins and overall profitability. In addition, the use of third-party ink could cause our print heads to clog or otherwise malfunction since our systems are set up to operate at the highest throughput level only when using our original ink and other consumables. We have sought to prevent this in part by protecting the innovations underlying our ink and other consumables through patents and other forms of intellectual property protections. Use of third-party ink and other consumables would also void the warranty over our systems. We also include an RFID mechanism with our ink tanks. These steps may be challenged. Any reduction in our ability to market and sell our ink and other consumables and spare parts for use in our systems may adversely impact our future revenues and our overall profitability.

We have in the past and may in the future become subject to third-party claims that assert that our solutions, services and intellectual property infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate third-party intellectual property or other proprietary rights. We, in turn, will seek to assert the validity of our intellectual property rights by any legal means that we deem necessary or appropriate in response to any actual or perceived threats. Intellectual property disputes can be costly and disruptive to our business operations by diverting the attention and energies of management and key technical personnel, and by increasing our costs of doing business. Even if a claim is not directly against us, our agreements with distributors generally require us to indemnify them against losses from claims that our products infringe third-party intellectual property rights and entitle us to assume the defense of any claim as part of the indemnification undertaking. Our assumption of the defense of such a claim may result in similar costs, disruption and diversion of management attention to that of a claim that is asserted directly against us. We may not prevail in any such dispute or litigation, and an adverse decision in any legal action involving intellectual property rights could harm our intellectual property rights and the value of any related technology or limit our ability to execute our business. Adverse outcomes in intellectual property disputes could: - require us to redesign our technology or force us to enter into costly settlement or license agreements on terms that are unfavorable to us;- prevent us from manufacturing, importing, using, or selling some or all of our solutions;- disrupt our operations or the markets in which we compete;- impose costly damage awards;- require us to indemnify our distributors and customers; and - require us to pay royalties.

On October 7, 2023, terrorists from Hamas and other terrorist organizations infiltrated Israel's southern border from the Gaza Strip and conducted a series of barbaric attacks on civilian and military targets, including widespread killings and kidnappings. They also launched extensive rocket attacks on the Israeli civilian population. Shortly following the attack, Israel declared war against Hamas. The Israel Defense Forces called up reservists for active duty, including approximately 13% of our Israeli workforce. There has also been increased fighting along Israel's northern border with Lebanon. The south of Lebanon is occupied by Hezbollah, a terrorist organization backed by Iran. In addition, Iran has threatened to attack Israel and has been developing a nuclear program. Our headquarters, research and development and manufacturing facility, and the primary manufacturing facilities of our third-party manufacturers, are located in Israel. In addition, the majority of our key employees, officers and directors are residents of Israel. To date, none of our facilities or infrastructure have been damaged nor have our supply chains been significantly impacted since the war broke out. However, a prolonged war could result in further military reserve duty call-ups as well as irregularities to our supply chain and our ability to ship products from Israel, which could disrupt our operations. Our commercial insurance does not cover losses that may occur as a result of an event associated with the security situation in the Middle East, as well as acts of terror. Although the Israeli government is currently committed to covering the reinstatement value of direct damages that are caused by terrorist attacks or acts of war, we cannot assure you that this government coverage will be maintained, or if maintained, will be sufficient to compensate us fully for damages incurred. Any losses or damages incurred by us could have a material adverse effect on our business. While we have commenced implementation of a business continuity plan which provides for alternative sites outside of Israel, there can be no assurance that such plan will be successful. Any armed conflict involving Israel could adversely affect our operations and results of operations. Several countries, principally in the Middle East, restrict doing business with Israel and Israeli companies. While some of these countries are eliminating these constraints, additional countries may impose restrictions on doing business with Israel and Israeli companies if hostilities in Israel or political instability in the region continues or increases. Although the recent Abraham Accords have enhanced Israel's relations with certain countries in the Middle East (i.e., the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan), an ongoing state of hostility vis-à-vis other countries, varying in degree and intensity, has caused security and economic challenges for Israel. In addition, there have been increased efforts by activists to cause companies and consumers to boycott Israeli goods based on Israeli government policies. Such actions, particularly if they become more widespread, may adversely impact our ability to sell our solutions. The shipping and delivery of our systems and ink and other consumables from our manufacturing facilities and those of our third-party manufacturers in Israel could be delayed or interrupted by political, economic, military, and other events outside of our reasonable control, including labor strikes at ports in Israel or at ports of destination, military attacks on transportation facilities or vessels, and severe weather events. Iran is backing the Houthi militia in Yemen which has been attacking ships in the Red Sea after the October 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas in an effort to deter ships from reaching the southern Israeli port of Eilat. If delivery and installation of our products is delayed or prevented by any such events, our revenues could be materially and adversely impacted.