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UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

(Mark One)

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FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2023

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FOR THE TRANSITION PERIOD FROM                      TO __________

COMMISSION FILE NUMBER 001-41261

DIRECT DIGITAL HOLDINGS, INC.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

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(832) 402-1051

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

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

None

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.  Yes ☐ No  ☒

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Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes ☐    No  ☒

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Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.  Yes  ☐    No  ☒

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Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes ☐    No  ☒

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Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

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If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

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

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

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

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

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As of October 11, 2024, there were 3,795,199 shares of the registrant’s Class A Common Stock outstanding, par value $0.001 per share, and 10,868,000 shares of the registrant’s Class B Common Stock outstanding, par value $0.001 per share. The aggregate market value of the common stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant as of the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter: $8.3 million.

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EXPLANATORY NOTE

Direct Digital Holdings, Inc. (the “Company”) is filing this Annual Report on Form 10-K as of and for the year ended December 31, 2023, which includes a restatement of the Company’s interim financial statements (collectively, the “Prior Period Financial Statements”) as of the periods ended March 31, 2023, June 30, 2023, September 30, 2023, and for the three months ended March 31, 2023, the three and six months ended June 30, 2023 and the three and nine months ended September 30, 2023 (collectively, the “Non-Reliance Periods”).

Background of Restatement

During the preparation of Company’s consolidated financial statements as of and for the year ended December 31, 2023, the Company identified prior period accounting errors resulting from the incorrect (1) accounting for, and presentation of, noncontrolling interests (“NCI”), (2) recognition of an organizational transaction in connection with the Company’s initial public offering, (3) presentation of earnings per share considering the effect of certain features of the Company’s warrants and the impact of correcting the accounting for, and presentation of, NCI, and (4) timing of the recording of the 2023 redemption of warrants. As a result, on October 14, 2024, the Audit Committee, in consultation with management, determined that the Prior Period Financial Statements for the Non-Reliance Periods should no longer be relied upon. Management and the Audit Committee have determined that these errors in the unaudited interim consolidated financial statements for the Non-Reliance Periods noted above required a restatement of the Prior Period Financial Statements (the “Restatement”).

Previously filed quarterly reports on Form 10-Q for the Prior Period Financial Statements have not been amended. Accordingly, investors should no longer rely upon the Company’s previously released financial statements for these periods and any earnings releases or other communications relating to these periods, and, for these periods, investors should rely solely on the financial statements and other financial data for the relevant periods included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. See Note 13, “Restatement (Unaudited),” for the impact of these adjustments on each of the first three quarters of fiscal 2023.

Internal Control Considerations

In connection with the restatement, management has assessed the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting as of December 31, 2023. Based on this assessment, management identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2023 and determined that the Company’s internal controls were not effective. In addition, management determined that the Company’s disclosure controls and procedures were not effective as of December 31, 2023. Management is taking steps to remediate the material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures, as described in Part II, Item 9A, “Controls and Procedures.”

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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CERTAIN DEFINITIONS

Unless the context requires otherwise, references in this Annual Report on Form 10-K to:

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PART I

ITEM 1.Business

Company Overview

We are an end-to-end, full-service advertising and marketing platform primarily focused on providing advertising technology, data-driven campaign optimization and other solutions to help brands, agencies, middle market businesses deliver successful marketing results that drive return on investment ("ROI") across both the sell- and buy-side of the digital advertising ecosystem. Direct Digital Holdings, Inc., incorporated as a Delaware corporation on August 23, 2021, is the holding company for DDH LLC, the business formed by our founders in 2018 through the acquisitions of Colossus Media and Huddled Masses. Colossus Media operates our proprietary sell-side programmatic platform (“SSP”) operating under the trademarked banner of Colossus SSP™, which provides advertisers of all sizes a programmatic advertising platform that automates the sale of ad inventory between advertisers and agencies leveraging proprietary technology. Our platform offers extensive reach within both general market and multicultural media partners to help Fortune 500 brands and agencies scale to reach highly sought after audiences and helps publishers find the right brands for their readers, as well as drive advertising yields across all channels: web, mobile, and connected TV ("CTV").  

Both buy-side advertising businesses, Orange 142 and Huddled Masses, provide technology-enabled advertising solutions and consulting services to clients through multiple leading demand side platforms (“DSPs”), across multiple industry verticals such as travel, education, healthcare, financial services, consumer products and other sectors with particular emphasis on small and mid-sized businesses transitioning into digital with growing digital media budgets. In February 2022, we completed our initial public offering and certain organizational transactions which resulted in our current structure.

In the digital advertising space, buyers, particularly small and mid-sized businesses, can potentially achieve significantly higher ROI on their advertising spend compared to traditional media advertising by leveraging data-driven over-the-top/connected TV (“OTT/CTV”), video and display, in-app, native and audio advertisements that are delivered both at scale and on a highly targeted basis.

Programmatic Marketplace Transaction

The Sell-Side

On the sell-side of the digital supply chain, the supply side platform (“SSP”), is an ad technology platform used by publishers to sell, manage and optimize the ad inventory on their websites in an automated and effective way. The SSPs help the publishers monetize the display ads, video ads, and native ads on their websites and mobile apps. The SSPs have enhanced their functionalities over the years and have included ad exchange mechanisms to efficiently manage their ad

inventory. Also, SSPs allow the publishers to connect to DSPs directly instead of connecting through ad exchanges. The SSP allows publishers’ inventory to be opened up and made available to advertisers they may not be able to directly connect with. SSPs sell ad inventories in many ways — for example, directly to ad networks, via direct deals with DSPs, and most commonly via real-time bidding (“RTB”) auctions. The publisher makes its ad inventory available on an SSP and the SSP invites advertisers to bid based on the user’s data received. Each time the publisher’s web page loads, an ad request is sent to multiple ad exchanges and, in some cases, to the demand side platform directly from the SSP. In the case of RTB media buys, many DSPs place bids for the impressions being offered by the publisher during the auction. The advertiser that bids a higher amount compared to other advertisers will win the bid and, in most cases, pay the second highest price plus $0.01 and in a few cases pay the highest price for the winning impression to serve the ads.

The Sell-Side Platform: Colossus SSP

Colossus Media, which has been in operation since 2017, owns and operates our proprietary sell-side programmatic platform operating under the trademarked banner of Colossus SSP™. The Company’s platform allows the Company to sell, in real time, ad impressions from publishers to buyers and provides automated inventory management and monetization tools to publishers across various device types and digital ad formats. In 2023, our platform processed over 326 billion average monthly impressions, and served approximately 115,000 buyers. Each impression or transaction occurs in a fraction of a second. Given that most transactions take place in an auction/bidding format, we continue to make investment across the platform to further reduce the processing time. In addition to the robust infrastructure supporting our platform, it is also critical that we align with key industry partners in the digital supply chain.

Colossus SSP is agnostic to any specific DSP. To that end, Colossus SSP is integrated into several leading DSPs including but not limited to The Trade Desk, Google 360, Zeta Global, Xandr, Beeswax, Basis and Stirista. We continue to add new DSP partners especially where we believe the DSP might offer a unique advertising base seeking to target both our multicultural and general market audiences at scale. We help our advertiser clients efficiently reach multicultural and diverse communities including African Americans, Hispanic/Latin, Asian Americans and LGBTQIA+ customers in highly targeted campaigns. This business began as a trading desk supporting advertisers’ desires to reach diverse audiences and we have evolved into the preeminent ad tech platform to support this goal. We partner with publishers that range from small to large in scale across both general and multicultural markets such as Hearst, MediaVine, Gannett, Ebony Magazine, Blavity, La Nacion and many others.

Colossus SSP partners with publishers to sell advertising inventory to our Colossus Media-curated clients and the open markets (collectively referred to as “buyers”) seeking to access the general market as well as unique multi-cultural audiences. Buyers may include small and mid-sized buyers as well as larger, Fortune 500 industry leading brands and multinational agencies, along with intermediaries that sit between Colossus SSP and the end buyers.

Our proprietary Colossus SSP was custom developed with a view towards the specific challenges facing small and mid-sized publishers with the belief that smaller publishers often offer a more engaged, highly-valued, unique following but experience technological and budgetary constraints on the path to monetization. Our business strategy on the sell-side also presents significant growth potential, as we believe we are well positioned to be able to bring underserved multicultural publishers into the advertising ecosystem, thereby increasing our value proposition across all clients including our large clients. We believe that our technology curates unique, highly optimized audiences informed by data analytics, artificial intelligence and algorithmic machine-learning technology, resulting in increased campaign performance.

The Buy-Side

On the buy-side of the digital supply chain, digital advertising is the practice of delivering promotional content to users through various online and digital channels and leveraging multiple channels, platforms such as social media, email, search engines, mobile applications and websites to display advertisements and messages to audiences. Traditional (non-digital) advertising follows the “spray and pray” approach to reach out to the public, but the ROI is mostly unpredictable. On the other hand, digital advertising is heavily data-driven and can give real-time details of advertising campaigns and outcomes across an omni channel approach. The availability of user data and rich targeting capabilities makes digital advertising an effective and important tool for businesses to connect with their audiences.

We have aligned our business strategy to capitalize on significant growth opportunities due to fundamental market shifts and industry inefficiencies in serving the small and medium sized middle market companies that are the backbone of America. Several trends, happening in parallel, continue to revolutionize the way that advertising is purchased and sold. Specifically, the rise of the internet has led to a wholesale change in the way that media is consumed and monetized, as ads can be digitally delivered on a 1-to-1 basis. In traditional methods of advertising, such as broadcast TV, ads can target a specific network, program, or geography, but not a single household or individual as digital and OTT/CTV ads can. Additionally, we expect that the continued destabilization, including any potential phase out of digital “cookies” in the future, will (i) create more opportunities for technology companies that provide next-generation CTV and digital solutions, (ii) potentially minimize performance disruption for advertisers and agencies and (iii) potentially drive more small-to-mid sized businesses to pursue digital advertising goals through buy side businesses like ours rather than on their own.

The Buy-Side Business: Huddled Masses & Orange 142

The buy-side segment is operated through Orange 142, which has been in operation since 2013, and Huddled Masses, which has been in operation since 2012. The buy-side segment allows us to facilitate the procurement of digital advertising inventory (ad space) on behalf of our clients, as well as offer a comprehensive suite of end-to-end media solutions. We specialize in tailoring strategies that enhance visibility, engage target audiences, and drive quantifiable Key Performance Indicators (“KPIs”) and tangible business outcomes.

The landscape of advertising is rapidly evolving, with digital channels gaining prominence over traditional advertising placements. Our buy-side platform is equipped with cutting-edge technology for first-party data management, media procurement, campaign execution, and analytics. This technological foundation empowers our clients to achieve enhanced ROI across a diverse range of digital media channels. Our platform interfaces with prominent programmatic DSPs, social media networks, and search engines, granting us the ability to harness customer insights across multiple channels. This cross-channel approach optimizes campaign performance and ROI for our clients. By adopting a platform-agnostic stance, our buy-side division offers extensive market access, enabling clients to purchase advertisements seamlessly across various mediums such as desktop, mobile, connected TV, streaming audio, social media, and digital billboards.

A distinctive feature of our technology is its visibility across inventory, facilitating the creation of customized audience segments at scale. Based on client objectives and selected advertising channels, our buy-side platform offers forecasting and in-depth market insights. These tools empower our clients to enhance their Return on Advertising Spend (“ROAS”) across channels. Our buy-side segment primarily caters to small-to-mid-sized businesses, empowering them to leverage advanced advertising technology for targeted engagement. Our technology allows for direct, one-on-one interactions with potential customers, tailored to local markets, media devices, and footprints. Leveraging data analytics, we assess potential buyers' decision-making processes and optimize campaign strategies accordingly.

We understand that small and mid-sized businesses often operate within constrained marketing budgets and localized footprints. Our objective is to deliver precise, ROI-focused advertising solutions that offer measurable campaign success. For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, we served approximately 234 small-to-mid-sized clients through our buy-side segment. Our buy-side leverages leading DSPs and advertising channels such as The Trade Desk, Xandr, Google DV360, Basis, Beeswax, Meta, among others. This collaboration empowers us to drive increased advertising ROI and reduce customer acquisition costs for our clients. Through effective marketing strategies tailored to local markets, we aim to level the playing field for our buy-side customers, allowing them to compete effectively with larger advertisers. We believe our competitive advantage lies in our data-driven technology, enabling us to offer front-end, buy-side planning for small-to-mid-sized clients. Coupled with our access to multiple DSPs and advertising channels, we strive to deliver superior ROI.  

Throughout this Annual Report on Form 10-K, we use the terms "client" and "customer" interchangeably to refer to the businesses we serve.

Our Industry and Trends

There are several key industry trends that continue to revolutionize the way that advertising is purchased and sold. We believe that we are well positioned to take advantage of the rapidly evolving industry trends in digital marketing and shifts in consumer behavior, including:

Shift to Digital Advertising. Media has increasingly become more digital as a result of three key ongoing developments:

The resulting shift has enabled a variety of options for advertisers to efficiently target and measure their advertising campaigns across nearly every media channel and device. These efforts have been led by big-budgeted, large, multi-national corporations incentivized to cast a broad advertising net to support national brands.

Shift from Linear Broadcast to OTT/CTV. According to Emarketer, combined Linear TV and CTV ad spend will grow every year through to the end of 2027, when it will reach nearly $100 billion. CTV will account for all of the growth, with spend expecting to increase by $5.5 billion year over year in 2024 to $42.4 billion by end of 2027.

The increase in video streaming has led to online sources becoming the default for TV viewing for a majority of TV viewers with broadband at home. Consumers increasingly want the flexibility and freedom to consume content on their own terms resulting in access to premium content at lower prices and with fewer interruptions. Advertisers are recognizing these trends and reallocating their ad budgets accordingly to those companies that can access audiences through a variety of existing and new channels.

Increased Adoption of Digital Advertising by Small and Mid-Sized Companies. Only recently have small and mid-sized businesses begun to leverage the power of digital media in meaningful ways, as emerging technologies have enabled advertising across multiple channels in a highly localized nature. Campaign efficiencies yielding measurable results and higher advertising ROI, as well as the needs necessitated by the global economic and supply chain challenges, have prompted these companies to begin utilizing digital advertising on an accelerated pace. We believe this market is rapidly expanding, and that small to-mid-sized advertisers will continue to increase their digital spend.

Significant Increase in Multicultural Audience and Targeted Content. As digital media has grown and emerging marketing channels continue to gain adoption, audience segmentation, including on multicultural lines, has become more granular. A growing and increasing segment of those audiences is the multicultural audience, which has been traditionally underserved in the industry. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, racial minority and multi-racial consumers represent 41% of the U.S. population and are projected to be the numerical majority in the U.S. by 2044. When we expand the definition of multicultural to include LGBTQIA+ customers, the numbers are significantly greater. Advertisers and publishers alike face the same challenge. Advertisers are seeking new avenues and opportunities to connect with multicultural audiences in their natural media consumption environments while publishers are producing unique content to attract loyal consumers. The advantage will go to those innovative companies able to directly connect both sides to those audiences and leverage the insights flowing from those connections.

Local Ad Buying Becoming More Programmatic. Programmatic advertising enables advertisers to precisely target local audiences and increasingly an “audience of one.” Large amounts of inventory have been consolidated, allowing local advertisers to then be more selective about where, when and to whom they show their ads. The technology behind programmatic advertising, such as geotargeting, IP address identification, 1-3-5 radius store location advertising, has provided the opportunity for targeted local advertising to smaller advertisers, which technologies in the past have been more easily available to larger national advertisers. We believe being able to go into a programmatic platform and target

the same audience across all digital inventory is a major competitive advantage. Additionally, we also believe that the ability to customize audiences to the needs of local providers is a significant benefit for local advertisers since they are able to deviate from the broad audience segments defined by national advertisers. Higher customer engagement translates into higher retention and extended customer lifecycle representing the opportunity to sell and upsell customers. We believe the local advertising market remains in the early stages of understanding and leveraging these capabilities.

Potential Death of Cookies Could Destabilize Small-to-Mid-Size Business Ad Market. As the advertising industry faces a potential phase out of third-party cookies, small-to-mid-sized business are starting to face greater challenges in the adoption and transition to digital. While first- party data driven by first-party cookies will still have broad-based advertising support, more robust advertising efforts could experience some level of performance degradation. Specifically, the inability to tie ad impressions to an identity could add to the list of challenges already being faced by small-to-mid-sized businesses. However, we expect that any destabilization will create significant opportunities for next-generation technology companies, including us, that can provide media buying solutions and minimize performance disruption for advertisers and agencies.

Our Customers

On the sell-side of our business, our customers (or buyers) include DSPs, agencies and individual advertisers. We have broad exposure to the ecosystem of buyers, reaching on average approximately 115,000 advertisers per month in 2023 compared to approximately 114,000 in 2022. As spending on programmatic advertising increasingly becomes a larger share of the overall ad spend, advertisers and agencies are seeking greater control of their digital advertising supply chains. To take advantage of this industry shift, we have entered into Supply Path Optimization (“SPO”) agreements directly with customers which address acceptable advertisements and data usage. As part of these agreements, we provide advertisers and agencies with benefits ranging from custom data and workflow integrations, product features, volume-based business terms, and visibility into campaign performance data and methodology. As a result of these direct relationships, our existing advertisers and agencies are incentivized to allocate an increasing percentage of their advertising budgets to our platform.

On the buy-side of our business, our customers consist of purchasers of digital advertising inventory (ad space). We serve the needs of over 230 small and mid-sized clients, consisting of advertising buyers, including small and mid-sized companies, large advertising holding companies (which may manage several agencies), independent advertising agencies and mid-market advertising service organizations. Many advertising agencies and advertising holding companies have a decision-making function that is generally highly decentralized, such that purchasing decisions are made, and relationships with advertisers are located, at the agency, local branch or division level. We serve a variety of customers across multiple industries including travel/tourism (including destination marketing organizations or “DMOs”), education, energy, consumer packaged goods (“CPG”) healthcare, financial services (including cryptocurrency technologies) and other industries. Some of the significant brands we work with on the buy-side include Visit Virginia Beach, Pigeon Forge, Emory University and City of Colorado Springs.

Our Competitive Strengths

We believe the following attributes and capabilities form our core strengths and provide us with competitive advantages:

Diversity

We believe it is essential for our organization, from top to bottom, to understand and relate to the issues our clients face on both the sell-side and buy-side. Our founders are of African-American descent and founded our Company on multicultural principles designed to alleviate the challenges that buyers and publishers face accessing an expansive multicultural market. Our management team reflects the tone and tenor of our multicultural audiences and our policies on gender equality and gender pay. More than 70% of our management are women and/or identify as being from a diverse background, including all five of our executive officers. We manage our hiring processes in full compliance with applicable laws and regulations, including anti-discrimination statutes.

Environmental

Our platform requires significant amounts of information to be stored across multiple servers and we anticipate those amounts to increase significantly as we grow. We are committed to ensuring that we incorporate environmental excellence in our business mindset. Energy use, recycling practices and resource conservation are a few of the factors we take into consideration in building our technological infrastructure, selecting IT partners, and utilizing key suppliers. In the first half of 2023, we transitioned our server platform to HPE Greenlake, which is centered on environmentally-friendly operations and marketed as “Greenlake-as-a-service,” through which we promote its energy conservation principles. We opted for HPE GreenLake’s as-a-service model because it represents a shift towards supplier responsibility for the elimination of wasted infrastructure and processing capacity. Our needs are metered and monitored, providing insights that can lead to significant resource and energy efficiencies by avoiding overprovisioning and optimizing the IT refresh cycle. This enables us to bring existing equipment to the highest levels of utilization and to eliminate idling equipment that drains energy and resources, yielding both environmental and financial savings.

Our Growth Strategy

We have a multi-pronged growth strategy designed to continue to build upon the momentum we have generated so far in order to create opportunities. Our key growth strategies include our plans to:

Revenues

We generate revenues through a broad range of offerings throughout our technology platforms. On the sell-side of our business, through our proprietary Colossus SSP, we generate revenues by enabling programmatic media buyers to buy ad inventory from our host of publishers and content creators aggregated to provide access to buyers at scale. Advertisers and agencies often have a large portfolio of brands requiring a variety of campaign types and support for a wide array of inventory formats and devices, including OTT/CTV, video and display, in-app, native and audio. Our omni-channel proprietary technology platform is designed to maximize these various advertising channels, which we believe is a further driver of efficiency for our buyers. As of December 31, 2023, the platform is comprised of publishers across multiple channels including OTT/CTV, display, native, in-app, online video (“OLV”), audio and digital out-of-home (“DOOH”). Through our platform during 2023, we processed approximately 326 billion monthly impressions across many unique audiences including multicultural audiences at scale with 41 billion, or 13%, of those impressions being diverse and multicultural- focused, including African Americans, Latin Americans, Asian Americans and LGBTQIA+ customers. We provide our publishers with access to a host of media buyers on a daily basis. Our publishers, through our platform, had access to approximately 115,000 buyers of ad inventory in December 2023. We have a sales team working on behalf of our publishers to enlist more ad buyers across all media channels to generate more revenue for our publishers. The Colossus SSP continues to expand its capabilities to give our content providers more avenues to distribute ad inventory such as OTT/CTV, digital audio, DOOH, etc. and inform our publishers to enhance their ad selling needs by distributing content in various forms to meet the rising demands of the ad buying community.

On the buy-side of our business, our team of savvy digital strategists, skilled software developers, experienced ad buyers or traders, expert technicians and data analysts drives the execution of advertising strategies across an array of digital channels including programmatic advertising, social, paid search, mobile, native, email, video advertising, OTT/CTV, audio, DOOH and more. In the world’s constantly shifting and expanding digital landscape, where it is easy for “set it and leave it” mentalities and impersonal algorithms to steer digital advertising campaigns, our data-driven approach enables customized ROI-focused outcomes for our clients.

We have a wide variety of small and mid-sized companies representing numerous industry verticals such as travel, education, healthcare, financial services, and consumer goods and services. We are typically engaged on an “insertion order” or master services agreement, with the typical engagement driven by the campaign goals of the client. For our mid- sized clients, we typically engage on a long-term contractual basis ranging from one to five years, while our smaller clients tend to engage on a shorter duration of less than one year despite the fact that many of our smaller clients have been long-term clients well in excess of one year.

Marketing, Sales, and Distribution

Our sales organization focuses on marketing our technology solution to increase the adoption of our products by existing and new sellers and buyers. We market our products and services to sellers and buyers through our national sales team that operates from various locations across the United States. This team leverages market knowledge and expertise to demonstrate the benefits of programmatic advertising and how we can drive better performance and results for our clients. We are focused on expanding our national sales presence primarily by growing our sales personnel presence in certain states and regions around the country in which we currently operate and/or are seeking to establish a presence. We typically seek to add experienced sales personnel with an established track record and/or verifiable book of business and client relationships.

For Colossus SSP, our professional services team manages each new DSP or publisher/seller integration while the buyer team focuses on the unique challenges and issues arising with our inventory buys. For the buy-side platform, our sales team has three fundamental components: (1) a consulting services team that advises clients on a more enterprise level in the design and implementation of a digital media strategy; (2) a professional services team with each seller integration to assist sellers in getting the most value from our solution; and (3) our client services team that works closely with clients to manage and/or support campaigns.

Our marketing initiatives are focused on managing our brand, increasing market awareness and driving advertising spend to our platform. We often present at industry conferences, create custom events and invest in public relations. In addition, our marketing team advertises online and in other forms of media, creates case studies, sponsors research, writes whitepapers, publishes marketing collateral, generates blog posts and undertakes client research studies.

Competition

Sell-Side Competition

On the sell-side of the digital advertising industry, competition is robust but more limited in that there were approximately 80 SSPs in operation including Pubmatic, Magnite and Acuity Ads. We continue to refine our offering so that it remains competitive in scope, ease of use, scalability, speed, data access, price, inventory quality, brand security, customer service, identity protection and other technological features that help sellers monetize their inventory and buyers increase the return on their advertising investment. While our industry is evolving rapidly and becoming increasingly competitive, we believe that our solution enables us to compete favorably on these factors. We achieve this by ensuring that we have the right integrations and implementations in place. Our traffic verification partner is directly integrated within our exchange to ensure inventory quality on a real-time basis. We partner with an accredited Media Rating Council vendor to provide an added layer of security through sophisticated IVT detection and filtration. We believe that our verification with the Trustworthy Accountability Group indicates our status as a trusted player in the digital advertising ecosystem. Through our direct integration with The Media Trust’s Creative Quality Assurance (QA) product, we detect and eliminate the serving of malicious ads in real time, and by transacting on a universal cookie ID, consumers are served more relevant ads, advertisers reach more valuable users and publishers can match their audience data. In the end, we believe these factors enable our sales team to promote the advantages of our platform and drive greater adoption of Colossus SSP.

Buy-Side Competition

The buy-side digital advertising industry is a very competitive, fast-paced industry with ongoing technological changes, new market entrants and behavioral changes in content consumption. Over time, digital advertising expenditure has predominantly flowed through a select group of major corporations, notably Google, Meta, and Amazon, all of which maintain their advertising inventory. These entities represent formidable competition as we compete for digital advertising inventory and market demand.

Despite the dominance of large companies, there is still a large addressable market that is highly fragmented and includes many providers of transaction services with which we compete. There has been rapid evolution and consolidation in the advertising technology industry, and we expect these trends to continue, thereby increasing the capabilities and competitive posture of larger companies, particularly those that are already dominant in various ways, and enabling new or stronger competitors to emerge. Based on the current focus of our competitors, there is even more pronounced opportunity for engagement in the underserved and multicultural markets on which we focus our Company’s efforts today.

Seasonality in Our Business

In the advertising industry, companies commonly experience seasonal fluctuations in revenue. For example, in our sell-side advertising segment, many advertisers allocate the largest portion of their budgets to the fourth quarter of the calendar year in order to coincide with increased holiday purchasing. Historically, for our buy-side advertising segment, the second and third quarters of the year reflect our highest levels of advertising activity and the first quarter reflects the

lowest level of such activity. We expect our revenue to continue to fluctuate based on seasonal factors that affect the advertising industry as a whole.

Human Capital Resources

As of December 31, 2023, we had 90 employees, the majority of whom are full-time employees. None of our employees are currently covered by a collective bargaining agreement. We have not experienced any labor-related work stoppages and believe our relations with our employees are good. We promote a diverse workforce and believe that it fosters innovation and cultivates an environment filled with unique perspectives. As a result, in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, diversity and inclusion are part and parcel of our ability to meet the needs of our customers. Respect for human rights and a commitment to ethical business conduct are fundamental to our business model. In addition, we measure employee engagement on an ongoing basis, as we believe an engaged workforce leads to a more innovative, productive and profitable company. We obtain feedback from our employees to implement programs and processes designed to keep our employees connected with the Company.

Intellectual Property

The protection of our technology and intellectual property is an important component of our success. We rely on intellectual property laws, including trade secret, copyright and trademark laws in the U.S. and abroad, and use contracts, confidentiality procedures, non-disclosure agreements, employee disclosure and invention assignment agreements and other contractual rights to protect our intellectual property.

We own intellectual property related to our owned sites. We acquired the license to our proprietary Colossus SSP platform in 2022 from our third-party developer. As of December 31, 2023, we owned approximately four websites and URLs in varying stages of development to support our marketers advertising efforts. We also hold eight U.S. registered trademarks.

Available Information

We file annual, quarterly and current reports, proxy statements and other information with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (“Exchange Act”). Our filings are available to you on the internet website maintained by the SEC at www.sec.gov. We also maintain an internet website at www.directdigitalholdings.com. We make available, free of charge, on our website our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, proxy statements, current reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act, as soon as reasonably practicable after such reports are electronically filed with, or furnished to, the SEC. Our website also includes announcements of investor conferences and events, information on our business strategies and results, corporate governance information, and other news and announcements that investors might find useful or interesting. Our website and the information contained therein or connected thereto shall not be deemed to be incorporated into this Annual Report on Form 10-K or any other report we file with or furnish to the SEC.

ITEM 1A.Risk Factors

Summary of Material Risk Factors

The following is a summary of some of the risks and uncertainties that could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations and could make an investment in our Company speculative or risky. You should be aware that these risk factors and other information may not describe every risk facing our Company. Additional risks and uncertainties not currently known to us may also materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and/or results of operations. You should read this summary together with the more detailed description of each risk factor contained below. Some of these material risks include:

Risks Related to our Business

Our credit facilities subject us to operating restrictions and financial covenants that impose risk of default and may restrict our business and financing activities.

Our credit facilities, as defined in Note 3 – Long-Term Debt in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements, contain affirmative and negative covenants that, among other things, require us to maintain a maximum net leverage ratio of 3.50 to 1.00, a minimum fixed charge coverage ratio of 1.50 (or 1.25) to 1.00, a maximum total funded debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 3.50 to 1.00 and a minimum liquidity of $1,000,000. The maximum net leverage ratio changes to 3.25 to 1.00 in 2024 and changes to 3.00 to 1.00 in 2025 with additional incremental tightening of the ratio to 2.50 to 1.00 on June 30, 2026 and thereafter until maturity of the credit facilities. The maximum total funded debt-to-EBITDA ratio changes to 3.25 to 1.00 in March 2024 and changes to 3.00 to 1.00 on June 30, 2025. These covenants may limit the amount of our borrowing available under the credit facilities, affect our ability to operate our business and may limit our ability to have sufficient funding or otherwise to take advantage of potential business opportunities as they arise.

Our ability to comply with the covenants and restrictions contained in the credit facilities may be affected by events beyond our control, including prevailing economic, financial, and industry conditions. If the market or other economic conditions deteriorate, our ability to comply with these covenants may be impaired. A failure to comply with these provisions could result in a default or an event of default. Upon an event of default, unless waived, the lenders could elect to terminate commitments, cease making further loans, cause its loans to become due and payable in full and force us into bankruptcy or liquidation. If the payment of our debt is accelerated, our assets may be insufficient to repay such debt in full, and the holders of our stock could experience a partial or total loss of their investment.

Our ability to (1) renew our existing term credit facility, which matures on December 3, 2026, (2) renew our existing revolving credit facility, which matures on July 7, 2025 or (3) enter into any new credit facility may be limited due to various factors, including the status of our business, global credit market conditions and perceptions of our business or industry by sources of financing. In addition, if credit is available, lenders may seek more restrictive covenants and higher interest rates that may reduce our borrowing capacity, increase our costs and reduce our operating flexibility.

There is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern, which may hinder our ability to obtain future financing.

Our audited consolidated financial statements as of December 31, 2023 have been prepared under the assumption that we will continue as a going concern for the next twelve months. As of December 31, 2023, we had cash and cash equivalents of $5.1 million and an accumulated deficit of $2.5 million. We do not believe that our cash and cash equivalents are sufficient for the next twelve months. As a result of our financial condition and other factors described herein, there is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern. Among these factors include the May 2024 pause by a

sell-side customer of its connection to the Colossus SSP resulting from allegations contained in a defamatory article / blog post, which we believe was part of coordinated misinformation campaign. Our ability to continue as a going concern will depend on our ability to successfully manage costs after executing a reorganization plan on July 1, 2024, work with partners to achieve prior volume levels of sells-side revenue and obtain additional funding, as to which no assurances can be given. We continue to analyze various alternatives, including potentially obtaining additional or expanded lines of credit, debt or equity financings, or other arrangements. Our future success depends on our ability to raise capital and/or implement the various strategic alternatives discussed above. We cannot be certain that these initiatives or raising additional capital, whether through selling additional debt or equity securities or obtaining a line of credit or other loan, will be available to us or, if available, will be on terms acceptable to us. If we issue additional securities after the closing of this offering to raise funds, these securities may have rights, preferences, or privileges senior to those of our common stock, and our current shareholders may experience dilution. If we are unable to obtain funds when needed or on acceptable terms, we may be required to modify our business plans and operations, further cut operating costs, forego future development and other opportunities, or even terminate our operations.

We may not be able to secure additional financing on favorable terms, or at all, to meet our future capital needs, which may in turn impair our growth.

We intend to continue to grow our business, which may require additional capital to develop new features or enhance our platform, improve our operating infrastructure, finance requirements or acquire complementary businesses and technologies. Accordingly, we may need to engage in additional equity or debt financings to secure additional capital. If we raise additional funds through future issuances of equity or convertible debt securities, our existing stockholders could suffer significant dilution, and any new equity securities we issue could have rights, preferences and privileges superior to those of holders of our Class A Common Stock. 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, which may make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital and to pursue business opportunities. If we are unable to secure additional funding on favorable terms, or at all, when we require it, our ability to continue to grow our business to react to market conditions could be impaired and our business may be harmed.

As a result of our failure to timely file our Annual Report on Form 10-K for year ended December 31, 2023, and our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 2024 and June 30, 2024, we are currently ineligible to file new short-form registration statements on Form S-3, which may impair our ability to raise capital on terms favorable to us, in a timely manner or at all.

Form S-3 permits eligible issuers to conduct registered offerings using a short-form registration statement that allows the issuer to incorporate by reference its past and future filings and reports made under the Exchange Act. In addition, Form S-3 enables eligible issuers to conduct primary offerings “off the shelf” under Rule 415 of the Securities Act. The shelf registration process, combined with the ability to forward incorporate information, allows issuers to avoid delays and interruptions in the offering process and to access the capital markets in a more expeditious and efficient manner than raising capital in a standard registered offering pursuant to a Registration Statement on Form S-1.

As a result of the delayed filing of several of our periodic reports with the SEC, we will not be eligible to register the offer and sale of our securities using a registration statement on Form S-3 until one year from the date we regained and maintain status as a current filer. Should we wish to register the offer and sale of our securities to the public prior to the time we are eligible to use Form S-3, both our transaction costs and the amount of time required to complete the transaction could increase, making it more difficult to execute any such transaction successfully and potentially harming our financial condition.

Furthermore, the Company has several employee and director equity plans that are registered under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, pursuant to Form S-8. Under SEC regulations, the Company’s failure to file its periodic and annual reports with the SEC resulted in the suspension of the availability of these insider equity plans during the time that these reports were not on file. For that reason, employees and directors have not been permitted to liquidate any preexisting holdings of the Company’s common stock, nor has the Company been able to issue equity retention or incentive awards. These restrictions may have adverse effects on the Company’s employees and business, which could affect our future prospects and operations.

The restatement of our consolidated financial statements for the quarterly periods in the year ended December 31, 2023 has subjected us to a number of additional costs, risks and uncertainties.

As discussed elsewhere in this Annual Report, our management determined that our consolidated financial statements for the quarterly periods in the years ended December 31, 2023 should be restated due to accounting errors resulting from the incorrect (1) accounting for, and presentation of, noncontrolling interests (“NCI”), (2) recognition of an organizational transaction in connection with the Company’s initial public offering, (3) presentation of earnings per share considering the effect of certain features of the Company’s warrants and the impact of correcting the accounting for, and presentation of NCI, and (4) timing of the recording of the 2023 redemption of warrants. The restatement of our consolidated financial statements and the ongoing process of remediating the material weaknesses has caused us to incur substantial expenses for legal, accounting, and other professional services and has diverted our management’s attention from our business and could continue to do so. As a result of the restatement and the change in our registered public accounting firm, we have been delayed in filing this Annual Report on Form 10-K and our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for each of the periods ended March 31, 2024 and June 30, 2024, and there can be no assurance that we will be able to timely file our required reports for future periods. In addition, as a result of the restatement and associated non-reliance on previously issued quarterly financial statements, investors may lose confidence in our financial reporting and the price of our common stock could decline. We could also be subject to regulatory, stockholder or other actions in connection with the restatement and/or the associated material weaknesses, which would, regardless of the outcome, consume management’s time and attention and may result in additional legal, accounting and other costs. If such proceedings arise and we do not prevail in such proceedings, we could be required to pay damages or settlement costs. The restatement and related matters could impair our reputation or could cause our stockholders or other counterparties to lose confidence in us. Any of these occurrences could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

High customer concentration exposes us to various risks faced by our major customers and may subject us to significant fluctuations or declines in revenues.

There is an inherent concentration of credit risk associated with accounts receivable arising from revenue from major customers on both the sell-side and buy-side of the business. For the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, one customer of the sell-side business represented 73% and 63% of revenues, respectively. As of December 31, 2023 and 2022, one customer of the sell-side business accounted for 83% and 80%, respectively, of accounts receivable. In 2024, we experienced a short-pay notice from this customer resulting in reduction of our 2023 revenue to the reported amount of $157 million. The Company has not been provided with information as to the reason for the short pay, and therefore has disputed it. In conjunction with the short pay, the Company recorded a charge of $8.8 million for payments made to a few publishers, primarily because of the Company’s inability to charge back the publishers for the short pay given the lack of information and related documentation supporting such transaction. We do not expect these amounts to recur in any material fashion, although there is no assurance that this or other customers will not take such action in the future.

Additionally, although we continually seek to diversify our customer base, we cannot assure you that the proportion of the revenue contribution from this customer to our total revenues will decrease in the near future. Dependence on a limited number of major customers will expose us to the risks of substantial losses and may increase our accounts receivable and extend its turn-over days if any of them reduces or even ceases business with us. Specifically, any one of the following events, among others, may cause material fluctuations or declines in our revenues and have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects:

We are subject to payment-related risks and, if our clients do not pay or dispute their invoices, our business, financial condition and operating results may be adversely affected.

Many of our contracts with advertising agencies provide that if the advertiser does not pay the agency, the agency is not liable to us, and we must seek payment solely from the advertiser. Similarly, on the sell-side of our business, we contract directly with our publishers for the right to sell digital ad units, and as such we are contractually required to pay the publisher a fixed rate for digital ad units we sell to advertisers or advertising agencies, regardless of whether we are paid by the advertisers or agencies. Contracting with these parties, which in some cases have or may develop higher-risk credit profiles, may subject us to greater credit risk than if we were to contract directly with other parties such as advertisers or agencies. This credit risk may vary depending on various factors, including the nature of an advertising agency’s aggregated advertiser base. We may also be involved in disputes with agencies and their advertisers over the operation of our platform, the terms of our agreements or our billings for purchases made by them through our platform. If we are unable to collect or make adjustments to bills to clients, we could incur write-offs for bad debt, which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations for the periods in which the write-offs occur. In the future, bad debt may exceed reserves for such contingencies and our bad debt exposure may increase over time. Any increase in write-offs for bad debt could have a materially negative effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition. Even if we are not paid by our clients on time or at all, we are still obligated to pay for the advertising we have purchased for the advertising campaign, and as a consequence, our results of operations and financial condition would be adversely impacted.

Furthermore, we are generally contractually required to pay suppliers of advertising inventory and data within a negotiated period of time, regardless of whether our customers pay us on time, or at all. While we attempt to negotiate long payment periods with our suppliers and shorter periods from our customers, we are not always successful. As a result, our accounts payable are often due on shorter cycles than our accounts receivables, requiring us to remit payments from our own funds, and accept the risk of bad debt.

If we fail to detect advertising fraud, we could harm our reputation and hurt our ability to execute our business plan.

We may be subject to fraudulent or malicious activities undertaken by persons seeking to use our sell-side or buy-side platform for improper purposes, which could materially affect us. For example, our sell-side platform could be used to divert or artificially inflate advertiser purchases, or to disrupt or divert the operation of our systems and the devices of our publishers and their consumers in order to misappropriate information, generate fraudulent billings, stage cyberattacks, or for other illicit purposes. In addition, the success of our buy-side advertising business depends on our ability to deliver effective digital advertising campaigns to publishers, advertisers and agencies. Some of those campaigns may experience fraudulent and other invalid impressions, clicks or conversions that advertisers may perceive as undesirable, such as non-human traffic generated by computers designed to simulate human users and artificially inflate user traffic on websites. These activities could overstate the performance of our business, including any given digital advertising campaign, and could harm our reputation. It may be difficult for us to detect fraudulent or malicious activity because we do not own content and rely in part on our digital media properties to control such activity. Industry self- regulatory bodies, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”) and certain influential members of Congress have increased their scrutiny and awareness of, and have taken recent actions to address, advertising fraud and other malicious activity. If we fail to detect or prevent fraudulent or other malicious activity, the affected advertisers may experience or perceive a reduced return on their investment and our reputation may be harmed. High levels of fraudulent or malicious activity could lead to dissatisfaction with our solutions, refusals to pay, refund or future credit demands or withdrawal of future business, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, prospects or results of operations.

Operational and performance issues with our platform, whether real or perceived, including a failure to respond to technological changes or to upgrade our technology systems, may adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.

We depend upon the sustained and uninterrupted performance of our platform to manage our advertising inventory supply; acquire advertising inventory for each campaign; collect, process and interpret data; and optimize campaign performance in real time and provide billing information to our financial systems. If our platform cannot scale to meet demand, if there are errors in our execution of any of these functions on our platform, or if we experience outages, then our business may be harmed.

Our platform is complex and multifaceted. Operational and performance issues could arise from the platform itself or from outside factors, such as cyberattacks or other third-party attacks. Errors, failures, vulnerabilities or bugs have been found in the past, and may be found in the future. Our platform also relies on third-party technology and systems to perform properly. It is often used in connection with computing environments utilizing different operating systems, system management software, equipment and networking configurations, which may cause errors in, or failures of, our platform or such other computing environments. Operational and performance issues with our platform could include the failure of our user interface, outages, errors during upgrades or patches, discrepancies in costs billed versus costs paid, unanticipated volume overwhelming our databases, server failure or catastrophic events affecting one or more server facilities. While we have built redundancies in our systems, full redundancies do not exist. Some failures will shut our platform down completely, others only partially. We provide service-level agreements to some of our customers, and if our platform is not available for specified amounts of time or if there are failures in the interaction between our platform, partner platform and third-party technologies, we may be required to provide credits or other financial compensation to our customers.

As we grow our business, we expect to continue to invest in technology services and equipment. Without these improvements, our operations might suffer from unanticipated system disruptions, slow transaction processing, unreliable service levels, impaired quality or delays in reporting accurate information regarding transactions in our platform, any of which could negatively affect our reputation and ability to attract and retain customers. In addition, the expansion and improvement of our systems and infrastructure may require us to commit substantial financial, operational and technical resources, with no assurance our business will grow. If we fail to respond to technological change or to adequately maintain, expand, upgrade and develop our systems and infrastructure in a timely fashion, our growth prospects and results of operations could be adversely affected.

Operational and performance issues with our platform could also result in negative publicity, damage to our brand and reputation, loss of or delay in market acceptance of our platform, increased costs or loss of revenue, loss of the ability to access our platform, loss of competitive position or claims by customers for losses sustained by them. Alleviating problems resulting from such issues could require significant expenditures of capital and other resources and could cause interruptions, delays or the cessation of our business, any of which may adversely affect our operating results and financial condition.

If the use of third-party “cookies,” mobile device IDs or other tracking technologies is restricted without similar or better alternatives, our platform’s effectiveness could be diminished and our business, results of operations, and financial condition could be adversely affected.

We use “cookies,” which are small text files placed on consumer devices when an internet browser is used, and mobile device identifiers, to gather data that enables our platform to be more effective. Our cookies and mobile device IDs do not identify consumers directly, but record information such as when a consumer views or clicks on an advertisement, when a consumer uses a mobile app, the consumer’s location, consumer demographic, psychographic interest and browser or other device information. Publishers and partners may also choose to share their information about consumers’ interests or give us permission to use their cookies and mobile device IDs. We use data from cookies, mobile device IDs, and other tracking technologies to help advertisers decide whether to bid on, and how to price, an ad impression in a certain location, at a given time or for a particular consumer. Without cookies, mobile device IDs and other tracking technology data, transactions processed through our platform would be executed with less insight into consumer activity, reducing the precision of advertisers’ decisions about which impressions to purchase for an advertising campaign. This could make placement of advertising through our platform less valuable and harm our revenue. If our ability to use cookies, mobile device IDs or other tracking technologies is limited, we may be required to develop or obtain additional applications and technologies to compensate for the lack of cookies, mobile device IDs and other tracking technology data, which could be time consuming or costly to develop, less effective and subject to additional regulation.

Some consumers also download free or paid “ad blocking” software on their computers or mobile devices, not only for privacy reasons, but also to counteract the adverse effect advertisements can have on the consumer experience, including increased load times, data consumption and screen overcrowding. Ad- blocking technologies and other global privacy controls may prevent some third-party cookies, or other tracking technologies, from being stored on a consumer’s computer or mobile device. If more consumers adopt these measures, our business, results of operations, and financial condition could be adversely affected. Ad-blocking technologies could have an adverse effect on our business, results of

operations and financial condition if they reduce the volume or effectiveness and value of advertising. In addition, some ad-blocking technologies block only ads that are targeted through use of third-party data, while allowing ads based on first-party data (i.e., data owned by the publisher). These ad blockers could place us at a disadvantage because we rely on third-party data, while some large competitors have a significant amount of first-party data they use to direct advertising. Other technologies allow ads that are deemed “acceptable,” which could be defined in ways that place us or our publishers at a disadvantage, particularly if such technologies are controlled or influenced by our competitors. Even if ad blockers do not ultimately have an adverse effect on our business, investor concerns about ad blockers could cause our stock price to decline.

Additionally, in July 2022, Alphabet Inc.’s Google subsidiary (“Alphabet”) announced that it would delay its Chrome web browser timeline for the depreciation of cookies to 2024. In March 2021, Alphabet announced that it would not build alternate identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web, nor would Google use them in its products. In July 2024, Google announced that it no longer plans to deprecate third-party cookies and will offer new ways to elevate user choice. These changes, and other privacy controls that may be put in place by other web companies in the future, have the potential to have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition if they reduce the volume or effectiveness and value of advertising.

Unfavorable publicity and negative public perception about us or our industry, particularly concerns regarding data privacy and security relating to our industry’s technology and practices, and perceived failure to comply with laws and industry self-regulation, could adversely affect our business and operating results.

Recently our organization has been the subject of intentionally false, misleading and inaccurate statements attempting to discredit the performance and operations of the Company. We have filed a lawsuit alleging, among other things, defamation against the publisher of these statements. While we are vigorously pursuing this action, there can be no assurance that it will be resolved in our favor or that the reputation of the Company will not be materially impacted, causing clients and customers to stop conducting business with our organization, which could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

In addition, with the growth of digital advertising, there is increasing awareness and concern among the general public, privacy advocates, mainstream media, governmental bodies and others regarding marketing, advertising and data privacy matters, particularly as they relate to individual privacy interests and the global reach of the online marketplace. Concerns about industry practices with regard to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information, whether or not valid and whether driven by applicable laws and regulations, industry standards, customer or inventory provider expectations, defamatory statements, or the broader public, may harm our reputation, result in loss of goodwill and inhibit the use of our platform by current and future customers. Any unfavorable publicity or negative public perception about us, our industry, including our competitors, or even other data-focused industries, can affect our business and results of operations, and may lead to digital publishers or our customers changing their business practices or additional regulatory scrutiny or lawmaking that affects us or our industry. For example, in recent years, consumer advocates, mainstream media and elected officials have increasingly and publicly criticized the data and marketing industry for its collection, storage and use of personal data. Additional public scrutiny may lead to general distrust of our industry, consumer reluctance to share and permit use of personal data, increased consumer opt-out rates or increased private class actions, any of which could negatively influence, change or reduce our current and prospective customers’ demand for our products and services, subject us to liability and adversely affect our business and operating results.

Failure to manage our growth effectively could cause our business to suffer and have an adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition.

We have experienced significant growth in a short period of time. To manage our growth effectively, we must continually evaluate and evolve our organization. We must also manage our employees, operations, finances, technology and development and capital investments efficiently. Our efficiency, productivity and the quality of our platform and customer service may be adversely impacted if we do not train our new personnel, particularly our sales and support personnel, quickly and effectively, or if we fail to appropriately coordinate across our organization. Additionally, our rapid growth may place a strain on our resources, infrastructure and ability to maintain the quality of our platform. You should not consider our revenue growth and levels of profitability in recent periods as indicative of future performance. In future

periods, our revenue or profitability could decline or grow more slowly than we expect. Failure to manage our growth effectively could cause our business to suffer and have an adverse effect on our operating results and financial condition.

Future acquisitions or strategic investments could be difficult to identify and integrate, divert the attention of management, and could disrupt our business, dilute stockholder value and adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

As part of our growth strategy, we may acquire or invest in other businesses, assets or technologies that are complementary to and fit within our strategic goals. Any acquisition or investment may divert the attention of management and require us to use significant amounts of cash, issue dilutive equity securities or incur debt. There can be no assurance that we will successfully identify suitable candidates in the future for strategic transactions at acceptable prices or be able to consummate any desired transactions. Our failure to identify suitable candidates or close transactions with potential acquisition targets for which we have invested significant time and resources could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and cash flows. In addition, even if consummated, the anticipated benefits of any acquisition or investment may not be realized, and we may be exposed to unknown risks, any of which could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition, including risks arising from:

To fund future acquisitions, we may pay cash or issue additional shares of our Class A Common Stock or securities convertible into or exchangeable for shares of our Class A Common Stock, which could dilute our stockholders or diminish our cash reserves. Borrowing to fund an acquisition would result in increased fixed obligations and could also subject us to covenants or other restrictions that could limit our ability to effectively run our business.

Changes in legislative, judicial, regulatory or cultural environments relating to information collection, use and processing may limit our ability to collect, use and process data. Such developments could cause revenue to decline, increase the cost of data, reduce the availability of data and adversely affect the demand for our products and services.

We receive, store and process personal information and other data from and about consumers in addition to personal information and other data from and about our customers, employees and services providers. Our handling of this data is

subject to a wide variety of federal, state and foreign laws and regulations and is subject to regulation by various government authorities and consumer actions. Our data handling is also subject to contractual obligations and may be deemed to be subject to industry standards.

The U.S. federal and various state and foreign governments have adopted or proposed laws relating to the collection, disclosure, processing, use, storage and security of data relating to individuals and households, including the use of contact information and other data for marketing, advertising and other communications with individuals and businesses. In the U.S., various laws and regulations apply to the collection, disclosure, processing, use, storage and security of certain types of data. Additionally, the FTC, many state attorneys general and many courts are interpreting federal and state consumer protection laws as imposing standards for the collection, disclosure, process, use, storage and security of data. The regulatory framework for data privacy issues worldwide is complex, continually evolving and often conflicting, and is likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future. As a result, further restrictions could be placed upon the collection, disclosure, processing, use, storage and security of information, which could result in a material increase in the cost of obtaining certain kinds of data and could limit the ways in which we may collect, disclose, process, use, store or secure information.

While our platform and people-based framework operates primarily in the United States, some of our operations may subject us to data privacy laws outside the United States, such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) or similar legislation in the region, which prescribe a complex data protection regime including principles, rights and obligations with extraterritorial reach of EU, UK and data protection authorities of other jurisdictions. The costs of complying with (or paying any fines or penalties under) the GDPR and other foreign data privacy regulatory regimes may make our expansion into these markets less profitable or uneconomical, limiting our potential growth, and potentially adversely affecting our business, prospectus and results of operations.

In addition to government regulation, self-regulatory standards and other industry standards may legally or contractually apply to us or be argued to apply to us, or we may elect to comply with such standards or to facilitate our customers’ compliance with such standards. Some of these self-regulatory bodies have the ability to discipline members or participants, which could result in fines, penalties, and/or public censure of our publishers, which could in turn cause reputational harm to us.

Our legal risk depends in part on our customers’ or other third parties’ adherence to privacy laws and regulations and their use of our services in ways consistent with end user expectations. We rely on representations made to us by customers and data suppliers that they will comply with all applicable laws, including all relevant privacy and data protection regulations. Although we make reasonable efforts to enforce such representations and contractual requirements, we do not fully audit our customers’ or data suppliers’ compliance with our recommended disclosures or their adherence to privacy laws and regulations. If our customers or data suppliers fail to adhere to our expectations or contracts in this regard, we and our customers or data suppliers could be subject to adverse publicity, damages, and related possible investigation or other regulatory activity.

Furthermore, the costs of compliance with, and other burdens imposed by, the laws, regulations, standards and policies that are applicable to the businesses of our customers may limit the use and adoption of, and reduce the overall demand for, our platform. Privacy concerns, whether valid or not valid, may inhibit market adoption of our platform particularly in certain industries and foreign countries.

Our buy-side clients include destination marketing organizations (“DMOs”), which often operate as public/private partnerships involving a national, provincial, state and local governmental entity.

Our work for DMOs carries various risks inherent in the government contracting process. These risks include, but are not limited to, the following:

The occurrences or conditions described above could affect not only our business with the DMOs and related government entities involved, but also our business with other entities of the same or other governmental bodies or with certain commercial clients and could have a material and adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

The requirements of being a public company may strain our resources, divert our management’s attention.

As a public company, we are subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act, and are required to comply with the applicable requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the listing requirements of The Nasdaq Capital Market, and other applicable securities rules and regulations. Compliance with these rules and regulations increases our legal and financial compliance costs, makes some activities more difficult, time-consuming or costly and increases demand on our systems and resources. Among other things, the Exchange Act requires that we file annual, quarterly and current reports with respect to our business and operating results and maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal controls over financial reporting. Significant resources and management oversight is required to maintain and, if required, improve our disclosure controls and procedures and internal controls over financial reporting to meet this standard. As a result, management’s attention may be diverted from other business concerns, which could harm our business and operating results. Although we have already hired additional employees to comply with these requirements, we may need to hire even more employees in the future, which will increase our costs and expenses.

The digital advertising industry is intensely competitive, and if we do not effectively compete against current and future competitors, our business, results of operations, and financial condition could be harmed.

We operate in a highly competitive and rapidly changing industry that is subject to changing technology and customer demands and that includes many companies providing competing solutions. With the introduction of new technologies and the influx of new entrants into the market, we expect competition to persist and intensify in the future, which could harm our ability to increase revenue and maintain profitability. New technologies and methods of buying advertising present a dynamic competitive challenge, as market participants offer multiple new products and services aimed at capturing advertising spend.

On the sell-side, we compete with smaller, privately-held companies and with public companies such as Pubmatic, Magnite, and Acuity Ads. Our current and potential competitors may have significantly more financial, technical, marketing and other resources than we have, allowing them to devote greater resources to the development, promotion, sale and support of their products and services. They may also have more extensive customer bases and broader supplier relationships than we have. As a result, these competitors may be better able to respond quickly to new technologies, develop deeper marketer relationships or offer services at lower prices. Increased competition may result in reduced pricing for our platform, increased sales and marketing expense, longer sales cycles or a decrease of our market share, any of which could negatively affect our revenue and future operating results and our ability to grow our business. These companies may also have greater brand recognition than we have, actively seek to serve our market, and have the power to significantly change the nature of the marketplace to their advantage. Some of our larger competitors have substantially

broader product offerings and may leverage their relationships based on other products or incorporate functionality into existing products to gain business in a manner that may discourage customers from using our platform, including through selling at zero or negative margins or product bundling with other services they provide at reduced prices. Customers may prefer to purchase advertising on their own or through another platform without leveraging our buy-side business. Potential customers may also prefer to leverage larger sell-side platforms rather than a new platform regardless of product performance or features. These larger competitors often have broader product lines and market focus and may therefore not be as susceptible to downturns in a particular market. We may also experience negative market perception as a result of being a smaller company than our larger competitors.

We may also face competition from companies that we do not yet know about or do not yet exist. If existing or new companies develop, market or resell competitive high-value marketing products or services, acquire one of our existing competitors or form a strategic alliance with one of our competitors, our ability to compete effectively could be significantly compromised and our results of operations could be harmed.

A significant inadvertent disclosure or breach of confidential and/or personal information we hold, or of the security of our or our customers’, suppliers’ or other partners’ computer systems, could be detrimental to our business, reputation and results of operations.

Portions of our business require the storage, transmission and utilization of data, including access to personal information, much of which must be maintained on a confidential basis. These activities may in the future make us a target of cyber-attacks by third parties seeking unauthorized access to the data we maintain and to which we provide access, including our customer data, or to disrupt our ability to provide service through the Colossus SSP. In addition, we may be subject to any flaws in or breaches of our customers systems. Based on the types and volume of personal data on our systems, we believe that we are a particularly attractive target for such breaches and attacks.

Third parties could attempt to gain entry to our systems for the purpose of stealing data or disrupting the systems. In addition, our security measures may also be breached due to employee error, malfeasance, system errors or vulnerabilities, including vulnerabilities of our vendors, suppliers, their products or otherwise. Third parties may also attempt to fraudulently induce employees or customers into disclosing sensitive information such as usernames, passwords or other information to gain access to our customers’ data or our data, including intellectual property and other confidential business information.

We currently serve the majority of Colossus SSP functions from third-party data center hosting facilities. While we and our third-party cloud providers have implemented security measures designed to protect against security breaches, these measures could fail or may be insufficient, particularly as techniques used to sabotage or obtain unauthorized access to systems change frequently and generally are not recognized until launched against a target, resulting in the unauthorized disclosure, modification, misuse, destruction or loss of our or our customers’ data or other sensitive information. Any failure to prevent or mitigate security breaches and improper access to or disclosure of the data we maintain, including personal information, could result in operational disruptions, litigation, indemnity obligations, regulatory enforcement actions, investigations, fines, penalties, mitigation and remediation costs, disputes, reputational harm, diversion of management’s attention, and other liabilities and damage to our business.

Federal, state and foreign governments continue to consider and implement laws and regulations addressing data privacy, cybersecurity, and data protection laws, which include provisions relating to breaches. For example, statutory damages may be available to users through a private right of action for certain data breaches under the California Consumer Privacy Act (the “CCPA”), and potentially other states’ laws. In any event, a significant security breach could materially harm our business, operating results and financial condition.

The effects of macroeconomic conditions and geopolitical events, such as economic downturns and market conditions beyond our control, have had, and could in the future have, an adverse impact on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our business depends on the overall demand for advertising and on the economic health of advertisers and publishers that benefit from our platform. Economic downturns or unstable market conditions, such as those potentially created by

high price inflation, increasing interest rates, health pandemics or geopolitical instability may cause advertisers to decrease their advertising budgets, which could reduce spend though our platform and adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition. As we explore new countries into which we can expand our business, economic downturns or unstable market conditions in any of those countries could result in our investments not yielding the returns we anticipate. Additionally, actual events involving limited liquidity, defaults, non-performance or other adverse developments that affect financial institutions, transactional counterparties or other companies in the financial services industry or the financial services industry generally, or concerns or rumors about any events of these kinds or other similar risks, have recently and may in the future lead to market-wide liquidity problems, which could also lead advertisers to decrease their advertising budgets and/or reduce their spend though our platform. This uncertainty regarding liquidity concerns in the financial services industry could adversely impact our business, our business partners, or industry as a whole in ways that we cannot predict at this time.

Our success and revenue growth are dependent on adding new customers, effectively educating and training our existing customers on how to make full use of our platform and increasing usage of our platform by our customers.

Our success is dependent on regularly adding new customers and increasing our customers’ usage of our platform. Our contracts and relationships with customers generally do not include long-term or exclusive obligations requiring them to use our platform or maintain or increase their use of our platform. Our customers typically have relationships with numerous providers and can use both our platform and those of our competitors without incurring significant costs or disruption. Our customers may also choose to decrease their overall advertising spend for any reason. Accordingly, we must continually work to win new customers and retain existing customers, increase their usage of our platform and capture a larger share of their advertising spend. We may not be successful at educating and training customers, particularly our newer customers, on how to use our platform, in particular our advanced reporting tools, in order for our customers to get the most benefit from our platform and increase their usage. If these efforts are unsuccessful or customers decide not to continue to maintain or increase their usage of our platform for any other reason, or if we fail to attract new customers, our revenue could fail to grow or decline, which would materially and adversely harm our business, results of operations, and financial condition. We cannot assure you that our customers will continue to use and increase their spend on our platform or that we will be able to attract a sufficient number of new customers to continue to grow our business and revenue. If customers representing a significant portion of our business decide to materially reduce their use of our platform or cease using our platform altogether, our revenue could be significantly reduced, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition. We may not be able to replace customers who decrease or cease their usage of our platform with new customers that will use our platform to the same extent.

The market growth forecasts included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K may prove to be inaccurate and, even if the market in which we compete achieves forecasted growth, we cannot assure you our business will grow at similar rates, if at all.

Market growth forecasts are subject to significant uncertainty and are based on assumptions and estimates that may not prove to be accurate. The forecasts in this Annual Report on Form 10-K relating to expected growth in the digital advertising and programmatic ad markets may prove to be inaccurate. Even if these markets experience the forecasted growth, we may not grow our business at similar rates, or at all. Our growth is subject to many factors including our success in implementing our business strategy, which is subject to many risks and uncertainties. The failure of either the market in which we operate or our business to grow as forecasted could have a material adverse effect on our business, prospects or results of operations.

The market for programmatic advertising campaigns is relatively new and evolving. If this market develops slower or differently than we expect, our business, growth prospects and results of operations would be adversely affected.

The substantial majority of our revenue has been derived from customers that programmatically purchase or sell advertising inventory through our platform. We expect that spending on programmatic ad buying and selling will continue to be our primary source of revenue for the foreseeable future, and that our revenue growth will largely depend on increasing spend through our platform. The market for programmatic ad buying is an emerging market, and our current and potential customers may not shift quickly enough to programmatic ad buying from other buying methods, reducing

our growth potential. Because our industry is relatively new, we will encounter risks and difficulties frequently encountered by early-stage companies in similarly rapidly evolving industries, including the need to:

If the market for programmatic ad buying deteriorates or develops more slowly than we expect, it could reduce demand for our platform, and our business, growth prospects and financial condition would be adversely affected.

In addition, revenue may not necessarily grow at the same rate as spend on our platform. Growth in spend may outpace growth in our revenue as the market for programmatic advertising matures due to a number of factors including quantity discounts and product, media, customer and channel mix shifts. A significant change in revenue as a percentage of spend could result in an adverse change in our business and growth prospectus. In addition, any such fluctuations, even if they reflect our strategic decisions, could cause our performance to fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors, and adversely affect the price of our Class A Common Stock.

We often have long sales cycles, which can result in significant time between initial contact with a prospect and execution of a customer agreement, making it difficult to project when, if at all, we will obtain new customers and when we will generate revenue from those customers.

Our sales cycle, from initial contact to contract execution and implementation, can take significant time. Our sell-side sales cycle often has a duration of six-to-12 months, while our buy-side business sales cycle often has a duration of three-to-nine months. As part of our sales cycle, we may incur significant expenses before we generate any revenue from a prospective customer. We have no assurance that the substantial time and money spent on our sales efforts will generate significant revenue. If conditions in the marketplace, generally or with a specific prospective customer, change negatively, it is possible that we will be unable to recover any of these expenses. Our sales efforts involve educating our customers about the use, technical capabilities and benefits of our platform, and working through technical connections and troubleshooting technical issues with prospective customers. Some of our customers undertake an evaluation process that frequently involves not only our platform but also the offerings of our competitors. As a result, it is difficult to predict when we will obtain new customers and begin generating revenue from these new customers. Even if our sales efforts result in obtaining a new customer, the customer controls when and to what extent it uses our platform and therefore the amount of revenue we generate, and it may not sufficiently justify the expenses incurred to acquire the customer and the related training support. As a result, we may not be able to add customers, or generate revenue, as quickly as we may expect, which could harm our growth prospects.

Failure to maintain the brand security features of our solution could harm our reputation and expose us to liabilities.

Advertising is bought and sold through our solution in automated transactions that occur in milliseconds. It is important to sellers that the advertising placed on their media be of high quality, consistent with applicable seller standards, not conflict with existing seller arrangements, and be compliant with applicable legal and regulatory requirements. It is important to buyers that their advertisements be placed on appropriate media, in proximity with appropriate content, that

the impressions for which they are charged be legitimate, and that their advertising campaigns yield their desired results. We use various measures, including technology, internal processes and protocols in an effort to store, manage and process rules set by buyers and sellers and to ensure the quality and integrity of the results delivered to sellers and advertisers through our solution. If we fail to properly implement or honor rules established by buyers and sellers, improper advertisements may be placed through our platform, which can result in harm to our reputation as well as the need to pay refunds and potential legal liabilities.

Our business is subject to the risk of catastrophic events such as pandemics, earthquakes, flooding, fire and power outages, and to interruption by man-made problems such as terrorism.

Our business is vulnerable to damage or interruption from pandemics, earthquakes, flooding, fire, power outages, telecommunications failures, terrorist attacks, acts of war, human errors, break-ins and similar events. A significant natural disaster could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition, and our insurance coverage may be insufficient to compensate us for losses that may occur. In addition, acts of terrorism could cause disruptions in our or our publishers’ and partners’ businesses or the economy as a whole. Our servers may also be vulnerable to computer viruses, break-ins, denial-of-service attacks and similar disruptions from unauthorized tampering with our computer systems, which could lead to interruptions, delays and the loss of critical data. We may not have sufficient protection or recovery plans in some circumstances. As we rely heavily on our data center facilities, computer and communications systems and the internet to conduct our business and provide high-quality customer service, these disruptions could negatively impact our ability to run our business and either directly or indirectly disrupt publishers’ and partners’ businesses, which could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

Our revenue and operating results are highly dependent on the overall demand for advertising. Factors that affect the amount of advertising spending, such as economic downturns and seasonality, can make it difficult to predict our revenue and could adversely affect our business.

Our business depends on the overall demand for advertising and on the economic health of our current and prospective sellers and advertisers. If advertisers reduce their overall advertising spending, our revenue and results of operations are directly affected. For Colossus SSP, many advertisers devote a disproportionate amount of their advertising budgets to the third and fourth quarters of the calendar year to coincide with the annual holiday purchasing season, and buyers may spend more on advertising campaigns in the second and third quarters for seasonality and budget reasons. As a result, if any events occur to reduce the amount of advertising spending during the second, third or fourth quarters, or reduce the amount of inventory available to advertisers during that period, such as adverse economic conditions or economic uncertainty, it could have a disproportionate adverse effect on our revenue and operating results for that fiscal year. Economic downturns or instability in political or market conditions generally may cause current or new advertisers to reduce their advertising budgets. Reductions in inventory due to loss of sellers would make our solution less robust and attractive to buyers. Adverse economic conditions and general uncertainty about economic recovery are likely to affect our business prospects. In particular, uncertainty regarding the impacts of inflation, increasing interest rates and the war in Ukraine on the economy in the United States may cause general business conditions in the United States and elsewhere to deteriorate or become volatile, which could cause advertisers to delay, decrease or cancel purchases of our solution, and expose us to increased credit risk on advertiser orders. Moreover, any changes in the favorable tax treatment of advertising expenses and the deductibility thereof would likely cause a reduction in advertising demand.

If the non-proprietary technology, software, products and services that we use are unavailable, have future terms we cannot agree to, or do not perform as we expect, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be harmed.

We depend on various technology, software, products and services from third parties or available as open source, including for critical features and functionality of our platform and technology, payment processing, payroll and other professional services. Identifying, negotiating, complying with and integrating with third-party terms and technology are complex, costly and time-consuming matters. Failure by third-party providers to maintain, support or secure their technology either generally or for our accounts specifically, or downtime, errors or defects in their products or services, could materially and adversely impact our platform, our administrative obligations or other areas of our business. Having to replace any third-party providers or their technology, products or services could result in outages or difficulties in our

ability to provide our services, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Market pressure may reduce our revenue per impression.

Our revenue may be affected by market changes, new demands by publishers and buyers, removal of cookies usage from the existing value chain, new solutions and competitive pressure. Our solutions may be priced too high or too low, either of which may carry adverse consequences. We may receive requests from publishers for discounts, fee revisions, rebates and refunds, or from DSPs, agencies and advertisers for volume discounts, fee revisions and rebates. We may assume responsibility for satisfying or facilitating the satisfaction of some of these requirements through the contracts we enter into with publishers, buyers, and partners. In addition, we may have responsibility for some acts or omissions of publishers, buyers, or partners transacting business through our platform under our contracts or under applicable laws or regulations. These responsibilities could expose us to significant liabilities, perhaps without the ability to impose effective mitigating controls upon, or to recover from, publishers and buyers. Any of these developments could adversely affect our business, results of operations or financial condition. Any failure for our pricing approaches to gain acceptance could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We face potential liability and harm to our business based on the human factor of inputting information into our platform.

We set up campaigns on our platform using a number of available variables. While our platform includes several checks and balances, it is possible for human error to result in significant over- spending. We offer a number of protections such as daily or overall spending caps. However, despite these protections, the risk of overspend exists. For example, campaigns which last for a period of time can be set to pace evenly or as quickly as possible. If a customer with a high credit limit enters an incorrect daily cap with a campaign set to a rapid pace, it is possible for a campaign to accidently go significantly over budget. While our customer contracts state that customers are responsible for media purchased through our platform, we are ultimately responsible for paying the inventory providers and we may be unable to collect when such errors occur.

If we are unable to successfully execute our strategies and continue to develop and sell the services and solutions our customers demand, our business, results of operations and financial condition may suffer.

We must adapt to rapidly changing customer demands and preferences in order to successfully execute our strategies. This requires us to anticipate and respond to customer demands and preferences, address business model shifts, optimize our go-to-market execution by improving our cost structure, align sales coverage with strategic goals, improve channel execution and strengthen our services and capabilities in our areas of strategic focus. Any failure to successfully execute our strategies, including any failure to invest in strategic growth areas, could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We have a limited operating history and, as a result, our past results may not be indicative of future operating performance.

We have a limited operating history with the current scale of our business, which makes it difficult to forecast our future results. You should not rely on our past quarterly or annual results of operations as indicators of future performance. You should consider and evaluate our prospects in light of the risks and uncertainty frequently encountered by companies like ours. Some of these uncertainties relate to the fact that we operate in a rapidly evolving industry, which may present challenges forecasting accuracy, determining appropriate nature and levels of investments, predicting adequate future headcount, assessing appropriate returns on investments, achieving market acceptance of our existing and future offerings, managing client implementations and developing new solutions. If our assumptions regarding these uncertainties, which we regularly use and update to plan our business, are incorrect or change in reaction 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 and our business could suffer.

The loss, modification or delay of large or multiple contracts may negatively impact our financial performance.

Our contracts have generally been for terms of relatively short duration. Additionally, our clients generally will have the ability to delay the execution of services, reduce the number of hours that services require, and terminate their contracts with us upon a short notice for convenience and upon the occurrence of certain defined events, such as “for cause.” The loss or delay of a large contract or multiple contracts could adversely and materially affect our operating results.

We invest significantly in development, and to the extent our development investments do not translate into new solutions or material enhancements to our current solutions, or if we do not use those investments efficiently, our business and results of operations would be harmed.

A key element of our strategy is to invest significantly in our development efforts to improve and develop our software and the features and functionality for our platform. If we do not spend our development budget efficiently or effectively, our business may be harmed and we may not realize the expected benefits of our strategy. Moreover, development projects can be technically challenging, time-consuming and expensive. The nature of these development cycles may cause us to experience delays between the time we incur expenses associated with development and the time we are able to offer compelling platform updates and generate revenue, if any, from such investment. Additionally, anticipated enterprise demand for solutions we are developing could decrease after the development cycle has commenced, and we would nonetheless be unable to avoid substantial costs associated with the development of any such solutions. If we expend a significant amount of resources on development and our efforts do not lead to the successful introduction or improvement of solutions that are competitive in our current or future markets, our business and results of operations would be adversely affected.

We must provide value to both publishers and buyers of advertising without being perceived as favoring one over the other or being perceived as competing with them through our service offerings.

We provide a platform that intermediates between publishers seeking to sell advertising space and buyers seeking to purchase that space. If we were to be perceived as favoring one side of the transaction to the detriment of the other, or presenting a competitive challenge to their own businesses, demand for our platform from publishers or buyers would decrease and our business, results of operations and financial condition would be adversely affected.

We rely on highly skilled personnel and if we are unable to attract, retain or motivate substantial numbers of qualified personnel or expand and train our sales force, we may not be able to grow effectively.

We rely on highly skilled personnel and if we are unable to attract, retain or motivate substantial numbers of qualified personnel or expand and train our sales force, we may not be able to grow effectively. Our success largely depends on the talents and efforts of key technical, sales and marketing employees and our future success depends on our continuing ability to identify, hire, develop, motivate and retain highly skilled personnel for all areas of our organization. Competition in our industry is intense and often leads to increased compensation and other personnel costs. In addition, competition for employees with experience in our industry can be intense where our development operations are concentrated and where other technology companies compete for management and engineering talent. Our continued ability to compete and grow effectively depends on our ability to attract substantial numbers of qualified new employees and to retain and motivate our existing employees.

We are, and may continue to be, subject to securities litigation, which is expensive and could divert management’s attention, cause harm to our reputation and result in significant damages for which we could be responsible.

We are subject to securities class action litigation, which is expensive and could divert our management’s attention, harm our reputation, and leave us liable for substantial damages. For example, on May 23, 2024, an alleged stockholder, purportedly on behalf of the persons or entities who purchased or acquired publicly traded securities of the Company between April 2023 and March 2024, filed a putative class action against the Company, certain of our officers and directors, and other defendants in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, alleging violations of federal securities laws related to alleged false or misleading disclosures made by the Company in its public filings. On July 9, 2024, another alleged stockholder filed a similar securities class action against the Company, certain of our officers and

directors, also in the Southern District of Texas. These two actions have now been consolidated. Each of these complaints seeks unspecified damages, plus costs, fees, and attorneys’ fees. As these actions are still in the early stages, the Company cannot predict the outcome of these matters.

Litigation of this type could result in substantial costs and diversion of management’s attention and resources, which could adversely impact our business. Any adverse determination in litigation could also subject us to significant liabilities, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

Risks Related to Legal and Regulatory Matters

Our business is subject to numerous legal and regulatory requirements and any violation of these requirements or any misconduct by our employees, subcontractors, agents or business partners could harm our business and reputation.

In addition to government contract procurement laws and regulations, we are subject to numerous other federal, state and foreign legal requirements on matters as diverse as data privacy and protection, employment and labor relations, immigration, taxation, anti-corruption, import/export controls, trade restrictions, internal and disclosure control obligations, securities regulation and anti-competition. Compliance with diverse and changing legal requirements is costly, including related to domestic and international anti-bribery and similar laws, time-consuming and requires significant resources. Violations of one or more of these requirements in the conduct of our business could result in significant fines and other damages, criminal sanctions against us or our officers, prohibitions on doing business and damage to our reputation. Violations of these regulations or contractual obligations related to regulatory compliance in connection with the performance of customer contracts could also result in liability for significant monetary damages, fines and/or criminal prosecution, unfavorable publicity and other reputational damage, restrictions on our ability to compete for work and allegations by our customers that we have not performed our contractual obligations.

Misconduct by our employees, subcontractors, agents or business partners could subject us to fines and penalties, restitution or other damages, loss of security clearance, loss of current and future customer contracts and suspension or debarment from contracting with federal, state or local government agencies, any of which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Such misconduct could include fraud or other improper activities such as falsifying time or other records, failure to comply with our policies and procedures or violations of applicable laws and regulations.

We rely on licenses to use the intellectual property rights of third parties to conduct our business.

We rely on products, technologies and intellectual property that we license from third parties for use in operating our business. We cannot assure you that these third-party licenses, or support for such licensed products and technologies, will continue to be available to us on commercially reasonable terms, if at all. We cannot be certain that our licensors are not infringing the intellectual property rights of others or that our suppliers and licensors have sufficient rights to the technology in all jurisdictions in which we may operate. Some of our license agreements may be terminated by our licensors for convenience. If we are unable to obtain or maintain rights to any of this technology because of intellectual property infringement claims brought by third parties against our suppliers and licensors or against us, or if we are unable to continue to obtain the technology or enter into new agreements on commercially reasonable terms, our ability to operate and expand our business could be harmed.

Risks Related to Our Organizational Structure

We are a holding company and our principal asset is our equity interest in DDH LLC, and, accordingly, we depend on distributions from DDH LLC to pay our taxes, expenses and dividends.

We are a holding company and have no material assets other than our ownership of LLC Units of DDH LLC. As such, we have no independent means of generating net sales or cash flow, and our ability to pay our taxes and operating expenses or declare and pay dividends in the future, if any, are dependent upon the financial results and cash flows of DDH LLC and its subsidiaries and distributions we receive from DDH LLC. DDH LLC and its subsidiaries may not generate

sufficient cash flow to distribute funds to us and applicable state law and contractual restrictions, including negative covenants in our debt instruments, may not permit such distributions.

We anticipate that DDH LLC will continue to be treated as a partnership for U.S. federal income tax purposes and, as such, generally will not be subject to any entity-level U.S. federal income tax. Instead, taxable income will be allocated to holders of LLC Units, including us. Accordingly, we will incur income taxes on our allocable share of any net taxable income of DDH LLC and will also incur expenses related to our operations, including payments under the Tax Receivable Agreement, described below, which could be significant. See Item 13 “Certain Relationships and Related Person Transactions, and Director Independence” for additional information. Furthermore, our allocable share of DDH LLC’s net taxable income will increase over time as DDM redeems or exchanges its LLC Units for shares of our Class A Common Stock.

We intend, as its managing member, to cause DDH LLC to make cash distributions to the owners of LLC Units, including us, in an amount sufficient to (i) fund their or our tax obligations in respect of allocations of taxable income from DDH LLC and (ii) cover our operating expenses, including payments under the Tax Receivable Agreement. However, DDH LLC’s ability to make such distributions may be subject to various limitations and restrictions, such as restrictions on distributions that would either violate any contract or agreement to which DDH LLC is then a party, including debt agreements, or any applicable law. In addition, liability for adjustments to a partnership’s tax return for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2017, can be imposed on the partnership itself in certain circumstances, absent an election to the contrary. DDH LLC could be subject to material liabilities pursuant to adjustments to its partnership tax returns if, for example, its calculations or allocations of taxable income or loss are incorrect, which also could limit its ability to make distributions to us.

If we do not have sufficient funds to pay taxes or other liabilities or to fund our operations, we may have to borrow funds, which could adversely affect our liquidity and financial condition and subject us to various restrictions imposed by any such lenders. To the extent that we are unable to make payments under the Tax Receivable Agreement for any reason, such payments generally will be deferred and will possibly accrue interest until paid; provided, however, that nonpayment for a specified period may constitute a material breach of a material obligation under the Tax Receivable Agreement and therefore accelerate payments due thereunder. See Item 13 “Certain Relationships and Related Person Transactions, and Director Independence” for more information. In addition, if DDH LLC does not have sufficient funds to make distributions, our ability to declare and pay cash dividends will also be restricted or impaired.

DDH is controlled by DDM, whose interests may differ from those of our public stockholders.

DDM, a holding company indirectly owned by our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and our President, controls approximately 75.8% of the combined voting power of our common stock through its ownership of Class B Common Stock. DDM is and will, for the foreseeable future, be able to substantially influence, through its ownership position, our corporate management and affairs, and is able to control virtually all matters requiring stockholder approval. DDM is able to, subject to applicable law, elect a majority of the members of our board of directors and control actions to be taken by us and our board of directors, including amendments to our certificate of incorporation and bylaws and approval of significant corporate transactions, including mergers and sales of substantially all of our assets. The directors have the authority, subject to the terms of our indebtedness and applicable rules and regulations, to issue additional stock, implement stock repurchase programs, declare dividends and make other decisions. It is possible that the interests of DDM may in some circumstances conflict with our interests and the interests of our other stockholders, including you. For example, DDM may have different tax positions from us, especially in light of the Tax Receivable Agreement, which could influence our decisions regarding whether and when to dispose of assets, whether and when to incur new or refinance existing indebtedness, and whether and when DDH should terminate the Tax Receivable Agreement and accelerate its obligations thereunder. In addition, the determination of future tax reporting positions and the structuring of future transactions may take into consideration DDM’s tax or other considerations, which may differ from the considerations of us or our other stockholders. See Item 13 “Certain Relationships and Related Person Transactions, and Director Independence” for more information.

The Tax Receivable Agreement with DDM and DDH LLC requires us to make cash payments to them in respect of certain tax benefits to which we may become entitled. In certain circumstances, payments under the Tax Receivable Agreement may be accelerated and/or significantly exceed the actual tax benefits we realize.

As a party to the Tax Receivable Agreement with DDH LLC and DDM, we are required to make cash payments to DDM equal to 85% of the tax benefits, if any, that we actually realize, or in certain circumstances, are deemed to realize (calculated using certain assumptions) as a result of (i) increases in the tax basis of assets of DDH LLC resulting from (a) any future redemptions or exchanges of LLC Units described under Item 13 “Certain Relationships and Related Person Transactions, and Director Independence” and (b) payments under the Tax Receivable Agreement and (ii) certain other tax benefits arising from payments under the Tax Receivable Agreement. See Item 13 “Certain Relationships and Related Person Transactions, and Director Independence” for more information. While the actual amount and timing of any payments under the Tax Receivable Agreement will vary depending upon a number of factors, including the timing of exchanges, the price of shares of our Class A Common Stock at the time of the redemption or exchange, the extent to which such redemptions or exchanges are taxable, future tax rates, and the amount and timing of our taxable income (prior to taking into account the tax depreciation or amortization deductions arising from the basis adjustments), we expect that, as a result of the size of the increases in the tax basis of the tangible and intangible assets of DDH LLC attributable to our interests in DDH LLC, during the expected term of the Tax Receivable Agreement, the payments that we may make to DDM could be significant.

Payments under the Tax Receivable Agreement are based on the tax reporting positions that we determine, and the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) or another tax authority may challenge all or part of the tax basis increases, as well as other related tax positions we take, and a court could sustain such challenge. DDM will not reimburse us for any payments previously made under the Tax Receivable Agreement if such basis increases or other benefits are subsequently disallowed, except that any excess payments made by us to DDM under the Tax Receivable Agreement will be netted against future payments that we might otherwise be required to make to DDM under the Tax Receivable Agreement.

Finally, the Tax Receivable Agreement also provides that, upon certain mergers, asset sales or other forms of business combination or certain other changes of control, our (or our successor’s) obligations with respect to tax benefits would be based on certain assumptions, including that we (or our successor) would have sufficient taxable income to utilize the benefits arising from the increased tax deductions and tax basis and other benefits covered by the Tax Receivable Agreement. Consequently, it is possible, in these circumstances, that the actual cash tax savings realized by us may be significantly less than the corresponding Tax Receivable Agreement payments. Our accelerated payment obligations and/or assumptions adopted under the Tax Receivable Agreement in the case of a change of control may impair our ability to consummate a change of control transaction or negatively impact the value received by owners of our Class A Common Stock in a change of control transaction.

Our organizational structure, including the Tax Receivable Agreement, confers certain benefits upon DDM that do not benefit the Class A Common stockholders to the same extent as they benefit DDM.

Our organizational structure, including the Tax Receivable Agreement, confers certain benefits upon DDM that do not benefit the holders of our Class A Common Stock to the same extent. The Tax Receivable Agreement we entered into with DDH LLC and DDM provides for the payment by us to DDM of 85% of the amount of tax benefits, if any, that we actually realize, or in some circumstances are deemed to realize, as a result of the Tax Attributes. Due to the uncertainty of various factors, we cannot precisely quantify the likely tax benefits we will realize as a result of purchases of LLC Units and LLC Unit exchanges and the resulting amounts we are likely to pay out to DDM pursuant to the Tax Receivable Agreement; however, we estimate that such payments may be substantial. See Item 13 “Certain Relationships and Related Person Transactions, and Director Independence” for more information. Although we retain 15% of the amount of such tax benefits that are actually realized, this and other aspects of our organizational structure may adversely impact the future trading market for the Class A Common Stock. In addition, our organizational structure, including the Tax Receivable Agreement, imposes additional compliance costs and requires a significant commitment of resources that would not be required of a company with a simpler organizational structure.

We may not be able to realize all or a portion of the tax benefits that are currently expected to result from the Tax Attributes covered by the Tax Receivable Agreement and from payments made under the Tax Receivable Agreement.

Our ability to realize the tax benefits that we currently expect to be available as a result of the Tax Attributes, the payments made pursuant to the Tax Receivable Agreement, and the interest deductions imputed under the Tax Receivable Agreement all depend on a number of assumptions, including that we earn sufficient taxable income each year during the period over which such deductions are available and that there are no adverse changes in applicable law or regulations. Additionally, if our actual taxable income were insufficient or there were additional adverse changes in applicable law or regulations, we may be unable to realize all or a portion of the expected tax benefits and our cash flows and stockholders’ equity could be negatively affected. See Item 13 “Certain Relationships and Related Person Transactions, and Director Independence” for more information.

If we were deemed to be an investment company under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the “1940 Act”), as a result of our ownership of DDH LLC, applicable restrictions could make it impractical for us to continue our business as contemplated and could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Under Sections 3(a)(1)(A) and (C) of the 1940 Act, a company generally will be deemed to be an “investment company” for purposes of the 1940 Act if (i) it is, or holds itself out as being, engaged primarily, or proposes to engage primarily, in the business of investing, reinvesting or trading in securities or (ii) it engages, or proposes to engage, in the business of investing, reinvesting, owning, holding or trading in securities and it owns or proposes to acquire investment securities having a value exceeding 40% of the value of its total assets (exclusive of U.S. government securities and cash items) on an unconsolidated basis. We do not believe that we are an “investment company,” as such term is defined in either of those sections of the 1940 Act.

As the sole managing member of DDH LLC, we control and operate DDH LLC. On that basis, we believe that our interest in DDH LLC is not an “investment security” as that term is used in the 1940 Act. However, if we were to cease participation in the management of DDH LLC, our interest in DDH LLC could be deemed an “investment security” for purposes of the 1940 Act.

We and DDH LLC intend to conduct our operations so that we will not be deemed an investment company. However, if we were to be deemed an investment company, restrictions imposed by the 1940 Act, including limitations on our capital structure and our ability to transact with affiliates, could make it impractical for us to continue our business as contemplated and could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Risks Related to Owning our Securities

We have identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting, which could, if not remediated, result in material misstatements in our financial statements.

The Company is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting, as defined in Rule 13a-15(f) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. As disclosed in Item 9A of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, the Company identified material weaknesses in its internal control over the completeness of revenue in 2022 (the “2022 Material Weakness”) and over a combination of deficiencies related to journal entry processes, information technology general controls (“ITGC”), and the technical evaluation of accounting matters in 2023 (the “2023 Material Weaknesses”). A material weakness is defined as a deficiency, or combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the Company’s annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. As a result of these material weaknesses, the Company concluded that its internal control over financial reporting was not effective as of December 31, 2022 and 2023.

In response to the 2022 Material Weakness discussed above related to 2022, the Company implemented remediation actions during 2023 that included improving its review process including the reconciliation and documentation of the demand-side platform reports to the sell-side platform data, improving contract management and review processes, engaging outside consultants to review business process analysis and flow of data to the accounting software platform and

financial reporting, identifying and documenting the risk assessment and internal controls, and testing the effectiveness of the design of our internal controls. Upon completion of these efforts, the Company concluded that the 2022 Material Weakness had been remediated as of December 31, 2023.

In 2023, the Company engaged consultants to assist with identifying and testing the design of control over business processes as well as ITGC. This project was completed in the first quarter of 2024. Upon completion of its testing of the design and operation of key internal controls, the Company also performed an assessment of whether any identified control deficiencies in 2023 were significant individually or on an aggregate basis. The Company determined that a combination of control deficiencies related to journal entry processes, ITGC and the technical evaluation of accounting matters indicated that material weaknesses existed as of the end of December 31, 2023.

The Company has begun the process of designing and implementing effective internal control measures to improve its internal controls over the journal entry processes, ITGC and the technical evaluation of accounting matters associated with the 2023 Material Weaknesses and remediate these material weaknesses. If these remedial measures are insufficient to address the 2023 Material Weaknesses, or if additional material weaknesses in the Company’s internal control over financial reporting are discovered or occur in the future, the Company’s consolidated financial statements may contain material misstatements, and the Company could be required to restate its financial results. In addition, if we are unable to successfully remediate the 2023 Material Weaknesses, our ability to produce timely and accurate financial statements, and comply with applicable laws and regulations will be impaired. If we are unable to report our results in a timely and accurate manner, we may not be able to comply with the applicable covenants in our financing arrangements and may be required to seek additional amendments or waivers under these financing arrangements, which could adversely impact our liquidity and financial condition. Failure to produce timely and accurate financial statements could also impair our access to the capital markets and/or materially and adversely impact the trading price of our Class A Common Stock.

Furthermore, as we grow our business, our disclosure controls and internal controls will become more complex, and we may require significantly more resources to ensure the effectiveness of these controls. If we are unable to continue upgrading our financial and management controls, reporting systems, information technology and procedures in a timely and effective fashion, we may need to devote additional management and other resources to assist in compliance with the disclosure and financial reporting requirements and other rules that apply to reporting companies, which could adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.

If we fail to maintain or implement effective internal controls, we may not be able to report financial results accurately or on a timely basis, or to detect fraud, which could have a material adverse effect on our business and the per share price of our Class A Common Stock.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting. We are continuing to develop and refine our disclosure controls and other procedures that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed by us in the reports that we file with the SEC is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in SEC rules and forms. We are also continuing to improve our internal control over financial reporting. We have expended, and anticipate that we will continue to expend, significant resources in order to maintain and improve the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting.

Our current controls and any new controls that we develop may become inadequate because of changes in conditions in our business. Further, weaknesses in our disclosure controls or our internal control over financial reporting may be discovered in the future. Any failure to develop or maintain effective controls, or any difficulties encountered in their implementation or improvement, could harm our operating results or cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations and may result in a restatement of our financial statements for prior periods. Any failure to implement and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting could also adversely affect the results of management reports and independent registered public accounting firm audits of our internal control over financial reporting that we are required to include in our periodic reports that are filed with the SEC. Ineffective disclosure controls and procedures, and internal control over financial reporting could also cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial and other information, which would likely have a negative effect on the market price of our Class A Common Stock. In addition, if we are unable to continue to meet these requirements, we may not be able to remain listed on The Nasdaq Capital Market.

Our independent registered public accounting firm is not required to audit the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting until after we are no longer an “emerging growth company,” as defined in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012. At such time, our independent registered public accounting firm may issue a report that is adverse in the event it is not satisfied with the level at which our internal control over financial reporting is documented, designed or operating.

Any failure to maintain effective disclosure controls and internal control over financial reporting could have a material and adverse effect on our business and operating results and cause a decline in the market price of our Class A Common Stock.

If we fail to satisfy applicable listing standards, including compliance with the rules requiring timely filing of our periodic reports with the SEC, our common stock may be delisted from the Nasdaq Capital Market.

On April 17, 2024, May 21, 2024 and August 21, 2024, we received notices from the Listing Qualifications Department of The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC (“Nasdaq”) regarding the Company’s failure to timely file its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2024 and its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2023 (such reports, “Delinquent Filings”), respectively, with the SEC. The Company submitted a plan to Nasdaq to regain compliance with respect to the Delinquent Filings, and Nasdaq granted the Company an exception until October 14, 2024 to evidence compliance with the rule requiring filing of our periodic reports. Neither the notices from Nasdaq nor the Company’s non-compliance with the rule has an immediate effect on the listing or trading of the Company’s securities on Nasdaq, which currently continues to trade on The Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbol “DRCT.” The Company continues to work diligently to complete and file the Delinquent Filings with the SEC and thereby regain compliance with the Rule as soon as practicable.

There can be no assurances, however, that we will be successful in regaining compliance with the continued listing requirements and maintaining the listing of our common stock on the Nasdaq Capital Market. Delisting from the Nasdaq could adversely affect our ability to raise additional financing through the public or private sale of equity securities, would significantly affect the ability of investors to trade our securities and would negatively affect the value and liquidity of our common stock. Delisting could also have other negative results, including the potential loss of confidence by employees, the loss of institutional investor interest and fewer business development opportunities. If our common stock is delisted by the Nasdaq, the price of our common stock may decline and our common stock may be eligible to trade on the OTC Markets or other over-the-counter quotation system, where an investor may find it more difficult to dispose of their common stock or obtain accurate quotations as to the market value of our common stock. Further, if we are delisted, we would incur additional costs under requirements of state “blue sky” laws in connection with any sales of our securities. These requirements could severely limit the market liquidity of our common stock and the ability of our stockholders to sell our common stock in the secondary market.

We may experience fluctuations in our operating results, which could make our future operating results difficult to predict or cause our operating results to fall below analysts’ and investors’ expectations.

Our quarterly and annual operating results have fluctuated in the past and we expect our future operating results to fluctuate due to a variety of factors, many of which are beyond our control. Fluctuations in our operating results could cause our performance to fall below the expectations of analysts and investors, and adversely affect the price of our Class A Common Stock. Because our business is changing and evolving rapidly, our historical operating results may not be necessarily indicative of our future operating results. Factors that may cause our operating results to fluctuate include the following:

Based upon the factors above and others beyond our control, we have a limited ability to forecast our future revenue, costs and expenses, and as a result, our operating results may, from time to time, fall below our estimates or the expectations of analysts and investors.

The trading price of the shares of our Class A Common Stock has been volatile, and purchasers of our Class A Common Stock could incur substantial losses.

Technology stocks historically have experienced high levels of volatility. The trading price of our Class A Common Stock may fluctuate substantially. These fluctuations could cause you to incur substantial losses, including all of your investment in our Class A Common Stock. Factors that could cause fluctuations in the trading price of our Class A Common Stock include the following: volatility in the market price of companies in our industry; announcements of new solutions or technologies by us or our competitors; overall stock market fluctuations; changes in customer or investor perception; litigation or regulatory activity; or departures of key employees.

We are a “controlled company” for purposes of the Nasdaq Marketplace Rules and, as a result, qualify for, and may rely on, exemptions and relief from certain corporate governance requirements. If we rely on these exemptions, our stockholders will not have the same protections afforded to stockholders of companies that are subject to such requirements.

DDM, a holding company indirectly owned by our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and our President, beneficially owns approximately 75.8% of the combined voting power of our Class A and Class B Common Stock. As a result, we are a “controlled company” within the meaning of the Nasdaq corporate governance standards. Under these corporate governance standards, a company of which more than 50% of the voting power in the election of directors is

held by an individual, group or another company is a “controlled company” and may elect not to comply with certain corporate governance requirements. For example, controlled companies are not required to have:

While we do not intend to rely on the exemptions related to being a “controlled company” within the meaning of the Nasdaq rules, we may utilize these exemptions for as long as we continue to qualify as a “controlled company.” Accordingly, our stockholders may not have the same protections afforded to stockholders of companies that are subject to all of the corporate governance requirements of The Nasdaq Capital Market. Investors may find our Class A Common Stock less attractive as a result of our reliance on these exemptions. If some investors find our Class A Common Stock less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our Class A Common Stock and our stock price may be more volatile.

Our charter documents and Delaware law could discourage takeover attempts and other corporate governance changes.

Our certificate of incorporation and bylaws contain provisions that could delay or prevent a change in control of our Company. These provisions could also make it difficult for stockholders to elect directors that are not nominated by the current members of our board of directors or take other corporate actions, including effecting changes in our management. These provisions include certain provisions that:

In addition, as a Delaware corporation, we are subject to Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law (the “DGCL”). These provisions may prohibit large stockholders, in particular those owning 15% or more of our outstanding voting stock, from merging or combining with us for a period of time without the approval of our board of directors. In addition, our credit facilities include, and other debt instruments we may enter into in the future may include, provisions entitling the lenders to demand immediate repayment of all borrowings upon the occurrence of certain change of control events relating to us, which also could discourage, delay or prevent a business combination transaction.

Because we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends on our Class A Common Stock in the foreseeable future, capital appreciation, if any, will be your sole source of gains.

We have never declared or paid any dividends on our Class A Common Stock. We currently intend to retain any earnings to finance the operation and expansion of our business, and we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. Any determination to pay dividends in the future will be at the discretion of our board of directors. In addition, the terms of our existing debt arrangements preclude us from paying dividends and our future debt agreements, if any, may contain similar restrictions. As a result, you may only receive a return on your investment in our Class A Common Stock if the market price of our Class A Common Stock increases.

General Risks

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

The trading market for our Class A Common Stock partially depends 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 one or more of the analysts who cover us should downgrade our shares or change their opinion of our business prospects, our share price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts ceases coverage of us or fails 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. If our estimates or judgments relating to our critical accounting policies prove to be incorrect, our results of operations could be adversely affected.

U.S. GAAP are subject to interpretation by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”), the 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 results of operations and could affect the reporting of transactions already completed before the announcement of a change.

The preparation of financial statements in conformity with U.S. GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities and disclosure of contingent liabilities at the date of the financial statements and the reported amounts of revenue and expenses during the reporting period as shown in the financial statements and accompanying notes appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Actual results could differ from these estimates. We base our estimates on past experiences, market conditions, and other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, and we evaluate these estimates on an ongoing basis. We use estimates to determine many reported amounts, including but not limited to gross vs net assessment in revenue recognition, recoverability of goodwill and long-lived assets, useful lives used in amortization of intangibles, income taxes and valuation allowances and fair values of assets and liabilities acquired in business combinations. Our results of operations may be adversely affected if our assumptions change or if actual circumstances differ from those in our assumptions, which could cause our results of operations to fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in the market price of our Class A Common Stock.

If our estimates or judgments relating to our critical accounting policies are erroneous or based on assumptions that change or prove to be incorrect, our operating results could fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in our stock price.

The preparation of financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in the consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes. We base our estimates on our best judgment, historical experience, information derived from third parties and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, as discussed in the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets, liabilities, equity, revenue and expenses that are not readily apparent from other sources. Our operating results may be adversely affected if our judgments prove to be wrong, assumptions change

or actual circumstances differ from those in our assumptions, which could cause our operating results to fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in our stock price. Significant assumptions and estimates used in preparing our consolidated financial statements include those related to revenue recognition, stock-based compensation and income taxes.

ITEM 1B.Unresolved Staff Comments

None.

ITEM 1C.Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity Risk Management and Strategy

All companies utilizing technology are subject to cybersecurity threats. We recognize the importance of assessing, identifying, and managing material risks associated with cybersecurity threats. These risks include, among other things: operational risks, extortion, harm to employees or customers and violation of data privacy or security laws. We aim to incorporate best practices throughout our cybersecurity program. Identifying and assessing cybersecurity risk is integrated into our overall risk management systems and processes. We have processes in place to assess, identify, manage, and address material cybersecurity threats and incidents. These include, among other things: annual and ongoing security awareness training for employees to help identify, avoid, and mitigate cybersecurity threats; policy regarding cybersecurity; mechanisms to detect and monitor unusual network activity; and containment and incident response procedures. Third parties also play a role in our cybersecurity. We engage third-party services to conduct evaluations of our security controls, whether through independent audits or consulting on best practices to address new challenges. These evaluations include testing both the design and operational effectiveness of security controls.

In the event of an incident, we intend to follow our detailed incident response policy and procedure, which outlines the steps to be followed from incident detection to mitigation, including notifying functional areas (e.g. legal), as well as senior leadership and the board of directors, as appropriate. Notwithstanding the approach we take to cybersecurity, we may not be successful in preventing or mitigating a cybersecurity incident that could have a material adverse effect on us. Any significant disruption to our service or access to our systems could affect our business and results of operations. Further, a penetration of our systems or a third-party’s systems or other misappropriation or misuse of personal information could subject us to business, regulatory, litigation and reputation risk, which could have a negative effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. For more information regarding risks surrounding cybersecurity, please see “Risk Factors” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

In the past two fiscal years, we have not identified any risks from cybersecurity threats that have materially affected (or are reasonably likely to materially affect) our business, results of operations, or financial condition. We can provide no assurance that there will not be incidents in the future or that they will not materially affect us, including our business, results of operations, or financial condition.

Cybersecurity Governance

Cybersecurity is an important part of our risk management processes and an area of focus for our board of directors and management team. Our board of directors have ultimate oversight regarding our cybersecurity with our audit committee specifically assisting the board of directors in the role of risk oversight by regularly reviewing cybersecurity matters and reporting to the board of directors. The Company’s Chief Technology Officer is responsible for developing and implementing our information security program and reporting on cybersecurity matters. Cybersecurity risk matters are reflected on reports and updates to operations management, senior management and our audit committee on a quarterly basis. This includes existing and new cybersecurity risks, status on how management is addressing and/or mitigating those risks, cybersecurity and data privacy incidents (if any) and status on key information security initiatives. To aid the board of directors with its cybersecurity and data privacy oversight responsibilities, the board of directors periodically hosts experts for presentations on these topics. For example, in 2023, management hosted an expert during the annual board of directors’ retreat to discuss developments in the cybersecurity threat landscape. Our board of directors also engage in ad

hoc conversations with management on cybersecurity-related news events and discuss any updates to our cybersecurity risk management and strategy programs.

Anu Pillai, our Chief Technology Officer, leads our cybersecurity efforts. She has been serving in her current role since March 2021. Anu has over 20 years of experience serving companies across multiple industries in senior management roles, within information technology and as such has developed substantial experience in cybersecurity, among other areas. Team members who support our Chief Technology Officer have similar broad experience and expertise in information security, including cybersecurity.

ITEM 2.Properties

Our headquarters are located in Houston, Texas, where we occupy a facility with approximately 7,400 square feet under a lease that expires in February 2030. We have permanent offices and/or a co-work office presence in two other office locations across the United States: Austin and New York. These offices or workspaces are leased, and we do not own any real property. We believe that our current facilities are adequate to meet our needs for the immediate future, and that, should it be needed, suitable additional space will be available to accommodate any expansion of our operations.

ITEM 3.Legal Proceedings

We may from time to time be subject to various legal or administrative claims and proceedings arising in the ordinary course of business. As of the date hereof, except as set forth below, we are not a party to any material legal or administrative proceedings nor are there any proceedings in which any of our directors, executive officers or affiliates, or any registered or beneficial stockholder, is an adverse party or has a material interest adverse to our interest. Litigation or any other legal or administrative proceeding, regardless of the outcome, is likely to result in substantial cost and diversion of our resources, including our management’s time and attention.

On May 23, 2024, an alleged stockholder, purportedly on behalf of the persons or entities who purchased or acquired publicly traded securities of the Company between April 2023 and March 2024, filed a filed a putative class action against the Company, certain of our officers and directors, and other defendants in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, alleging violations of federal securities laws related to alleged false or misleading disclosures made by the Company in its public filings. On July 9, 2024, another alleged stockholder filed a similar securities class action against the Company, certain of our officers and directors, also in the Southern District of Texas. The two actions have been consolidated. Each of these complaints seeks unspecified damages, plus costs, fees, and attorneys’ fees. The Company cannot make any predictions about the final outcome of this matter or the timing thereof but believes that plaintiffs’ claims lack merit and intends to vigorously defend these lawsuits.

On May 10, 2024, the Company was the subject of a defamatory article / blog post which the Company believes was part of a coordinated misinformation campaign. In connection with this post, one of the Company’s sell-side customers paused its connection to the Company while the allegations were investigated. This customer reconnected the Company on May 22, 2024 and sell-side volumes have resumed but not yet at the levels experienced prior to the pause in May 2024. The Company is actively working with its partners to achieve prior volume levels. On May 14, 2024, the Company filed a lawsuit against the author of the defamatory article and is vigorously pursuing its rights. The Company cannot make any predictions about the final outcome of this litigation matter or the timing thereof.

ITEM 4.Mine Safety Disclosures

Not applicable.

PART II

Market Information

Our Class A Common Stock is traded on The Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbol “DRCT.”

Holders

As of October 11, 2024, there were four holders of record of our outstanding Class A Common Stock. Holders of record are defined as those stockholders whose shares are registered in their names in our stock records. A substantially greater number of holders of our Class A Common Stock are beneficial owners of common stock whose shares are held in the names of banks, brokers, dealers or clearing agencies.

Dividend Policy

We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our Class A Common Stock. We currently anticipate that we will retain all future earnings for the operation of our business and we do not currently intend to pay any cash dividends on our Class A Common Stock in the foreseeable future.

Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities

None.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

On August 29, 2023, the Company commenced an offer to purchase (the “Tender Offer”) all of its outstanding publicly traded warrants to purchase shares of its Class A Common Stock at a purchase price of $1.20 in cash, without interest. The Tender Offer expired at one minute after 11:59 PM, Eastern Time on September 28, 2023. The Company accepted all validly tendered warrants for purchase and settlement on October 2, 2023. As a result of the Tender Offer, a total of 2,213,652 warrants were tendered and not validly withdrawn prior to the expiration of the Tender Offer for a total purchase price of approximately $2.7 million.

On October 23, 2023, the Company distributed a notice of redemption to the registered holders of the remaining outstanding warrants announcing the redemption of those warrants for a cash redemption price of $0.35 per warrant. The redemption closed on October 30, 2023, and all remaining 1,004,148 warrants were purchased for an aggregate price of approximately $0.4 million.

During the three months ended December 31, 2023, purchases of warrants were as follows:

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ITEM 6.[Reserved.]

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

You should read the following discussion together with our consolidated financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. This discussion contains forward-looking statements based upon current expectations that involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including those set forth under the section titled “Risk Factors” or in other parts of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. See “– Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” below. Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for any period in the future.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws that are subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties. We use words such as “could,” “would,” “may,” “might,” “will,” “expect,” “likely,” “believe,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “intend,” “plan,” “project” and other similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements, but not all forward-looking statements include these words. All of our forward-looking statements involve estimates and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by the forward-looking statements. Accordingly, any such statements are qualified in their entirety by reference to the information described under the caption “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

The forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are based on assumptions that we have made in light of our industry experience and our perceptions of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments and other factors we believe are appropriate under the circumstances. As you read and consider this Annual Report on Form 10-K, you should understand that these statements are not guarantees of performance or results. They involve risks, uncertainties (many of which are beyond our control) and assumptions.

Although we believe that these forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, you should be aware that many factors could affect our actual operating and financial performance and cause our performance to differ materially from the performance expressed in or implied by the forward-looking statements. We believe these factors include, but are not limited to, the following:

Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should any of these assumptions prove to be incorrect, our actual operating and financial performance may vary in material respects from the performance projected in these forward-looking statements. Further, any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which it is made or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events or circumstances. New factors that could cause our business not to develop as we expect emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all of them. Further, we cannot assess the impact of each currently known or new factor on our results of operations or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements.

Overview

Direct Digital Holdings, Inc. and its subsidiaries (collectively the “Company,” “DDH,” “we,” “us” and “our”), headquartered in Houston, Texas, is an end-to-end, full-service programmatic advertising platform primarily focused on providing advertising technology, data-driven campaign optimization and other solutions intended for underserved and less efficient markets on both the sell- and buy-side of the digital advertising ecosystem. Direct Digital Holdings, Inc. is the holding company that, since the completion of our initial public offering on February 15, 2022, owns certain common units, and serves as the manager of DDH LLC, which operates the business formed in 2018 through the acquisition of Colossus Media, LLC (“Colossus Media”), a sell-side marketing platform, and Huddled Masses, LLC (“Huddled Masses^®” or “Huddled Masses”), a buy-side marketing platform.

In late September 2020, DDH LLC acquired Orange142, LLC (“Orange 142”) to further bolster its overall programmatic buy-side advertising platform and to enhance its offerings across multiple industry verticals such as travel, education, healthcare, financial services, consumer products and other sectors with particular emphasis on small- and mid-sized businesses transitioning into digital with growing digital media budgets.

The subsidiaries of Direct Digital Holdings, Inc. are as follows:

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Colossus Media operates our proprietary sell-side programmatic platform operating under the trademarked banner of Colossus SSP™ (“Colossus SSP”). Colossus SSP is a stand-alone sell-side platform (“SSP”) intended to deliver targeted advertising to diverse and multicultural audiences, including African Americans, Latin Americans, Asian Americans and LGBTQIA+ customers, as well as general audiences. Both buy-side advertising businesses, Orange 142 and Huddled Masses, offer technology-enabled advertising solutions and consulting services to clients through demand side platforms (“DSPs”).

Providing both the front-end, buy-side advertising businesses coupled with our proprietary sell-side operations enables us to curate the first through the last mile in the ad tech ecosystem execution process to drive higher results.

Operating segments are components of an enterprise for which separate financial information is available and evaluated regularly by our chief operating decision maker (“CODM”) for purpose of allocating resources and assessing performance. Our CODM is our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. We operate as two reportable segments: sell-side advertising, which includes the results of Colossus Media, and buy-side advertising, which includes the results of Orange 142 and Huddled Masses. All our revenues are attributable to the United States.

The table below summarizes the financial highlights of our business (in thousands):

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Recent Developments

Nasdaq Rule Noncompliance.

On April 17, 2024, May 21, 2024 and August 21, 2024, we received notices from the Listing Qualifications Department of Nasdaq regarding the Company’s failure to timely file its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2024 and its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2024, respectively, with the SEC. The Company submitted a plan to Nasdaq to regain compliance with respect to the Delinquent Filings, and Nasdaq granted the Company an exception until October 14, 2024 to evidence compliance with the rule requiring filing of our periodic reports. Neither the notices from Nasdaq nor the Company’s non-compliance with the rule has an immediate effect on the listing or trading of the Company’s securities on Nasdaq, which currently continues to trade on The Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbol “DRCT.” The Company continues to work diligently to complete and file the remaining Delinquent Filings with the SEC and thereby regain compliance with the Rule as soon as practicable.

Relationship with Sell-Side Customer.

On May 10, 2024, the Company was the subject of a defamatory article / blog post which the Company believes was part of a coordinated misinformation campaign. In connection with this post, one of the Company’s sell-side customers paused its connection to the Company while the allegations were investigated. This customer reconnected the Company on May 22, 2024 and sell-side volumes have resumed but not yet at the levels experienced prior to the pause in May 2024. The Company is actively working with its partners to achieve prior volume levels. On May 14, 2024, the Company filed a lawsuit against the author of the defamatory article and is vigorously pursuing its rights. The Company cannot make any predictions about the final outcome of this litigation matter or the timing thereof.

Key Factors Affecting Our Performance

We believe our growth and financial performance are dependent on many factors, including those described below.

Sell-side advertising business

Increasing revenue from customers through increased advertising spend from buyers

Colossus Media operates our proprietary sell-side programmatic platform operating under the trademarked banner of Colossus SSP. Our customers (or buyers) include ad exchanges, DSPs, agencies and individual advertisers. We have broad exposure to the ecosystem of buyers, reaching on average approximately 115,000 advertisers per month in 2023 compared to approximately 114,000 in 2022. As spending on programmatic advertising increasingly becomes a larger share of the overall ad spend, advertisers and agencies are seeking greater control of their digital advertising supply chains. To take advantage of this industry shift, we have entered into Supply Path Optimization agreements directly with customers which address acceptable advertisements and data usage. As part of these agreements, we provide advertisers and agencies with benefits ranging from custom data and workflow integrations, product features, volume-based business terms, and

visibility into campaign performance data and methodology. As a result of these direct relationships, our existing advertisers and agencies are incentivized to allocate an increasing percentage of their advertising budgets to our platform.

We also strive to retain existing publishers and add new publishers. Establishing multiple header bidding integrations by leveraging our technology capabilities allows us to maximize our access to publishers’ ad formats, devices and various properties that a publisher may own. We may also up-sell additional products including our header bidding management, identity, and audience solutions. We enter into master service agreements with our publishers which, among other terms, set a fixed rate for content to be sold on Colossus SSP. Our strategy on the sell-side advertising business represents growth potential, and we believe we are well positioned to be able to bring underserved multicultural publishers into the advertising ecosystem, thereby increasing our value proposition across all customers, including large advertisers and agencies.

Monetizing ad impressions for publishers and buyers

We curate advertisers and increase access to publishers with valuable ad impressions. We focus on monetizing digital impressions by coordinating daily real-time auctions and bids. The publisher makes its ad inventory available on Colossus SSP and invites advertisers to bid based on the user’s data received. Each time the publisher’s web page loads, an ad request is sent to multiple ad exchanges and, in some cases, to the demand side platform directly from Colossus SSP. In case of real-time bidding (“RTB”) media buys, many DSPs would place bids to the impressions being offered by the publisher during the auction. The advertiser that bids a higher amount compared to other advertisers will win the bid and pay the second highest price for the winning impression to serve the ads. We continuously review our available inventory from existing publishers across every format (mobile, desktop, digital video, OTT, CTV, and rich media). The factors we consider when determining which impressions we process include transparency, viewability, and whether or not the impression is human sourced. By consistently applying these criteria, we believe the ad impressions we process will be valuable and marketable to advertisers.

Enhancing ad inventory quality

In the advertising industry, inventory quality is assessed in terms of invalid traffic (“IVT”) which can be impacted by fraud such as “fake eyeballs” generated by automated technologies set up to artificially inflate impression counts. Through our platform design and proactive IVT mitigation efforts, we address and minimize IVT on a number of fronts, including sophisticated technology, which detects and avoids IVT on the front end; direct publisher and inventory relationships, for supply path optimization; and ongoing campaign and inventory performance review, to ensure inventory quality and brand protection controls are in place.

Growing access to valuable ad impressions

Our recent growth has been driven by a variety of factors including increased access to mobile web (display and video) and mobile app (display and video) impressions and desktop video impressions. Our performance is affected by our ability to maintain and grow our access to valuable ad impressions from current publishers as well as through new relationships with publishers. For the year ended December 31, 2023, we processed approximately 7.9 trillion bid requests, up 134% from 2022 when we processed 3.4 trillion bid requests.

Expanding and managing investments

Each impression or transaction occurs in a fraction of a second. Given that most transactions take place in an auction/bidding format, we continue to make investments across the platform to further reduce the processing time. In addition to the robust infrastructure supporting our platform, it is also critical that we align with key industry partners in the digital supply chain. The Colossus SSP is agnostic to any specific demand side platform.

We automate workflow processes whenever feasible to drive predictable and value-added outcomes for our customers and increase productivity of our organization. In the first half of 2023, we transitioned our server platform to HPE Greenlake, which provides increased capacity, faster response time, and expansion capabilities to align with growth in our business.

Managing industry dynamics

We operate in the rapidly evolving digital advertising industry. Due to the scale and complexity of the digital advertising ecosystem, direct sales via manual, person-to-person processes are insufficient for delivering a real-time, personalized ad experience, creating the need for programmatic advertising. In turn, advances in programmatic technologies have enabled publishers to auction their ad inventory to more buyers, simultaneously, and in real time through a process referred to as header bidding. Header bidding has also provided advertisers with transparent access to ad impressions. As advertisers keep pace with ongoing changes in the way that consumers view and interact with digital media we anticipate further innovation and expect that header bidding will be extended into new areas such as OTT/CTV. We believe our focus on publishers and buyers has allowed us to understand their needs and our ongoing innovation has enabled us to quickly adapt to changes in the industry, develop new solutions and do so cost effectively. Our performance depends on our ability to keep pace with industry changes such as header bidding and the evolving needs of our publishers and buyers while continuing our cost efficiency.

Seasonality

In the advertising industry, companies commonly experience seasonal fluctuations in revenue. For example, in our sell-side advertising segment, many advertisers allocate the largest portion of their budgets to the fourth quarter of the calendar year in order to coincide with increased holiday purchasing. We expect our sell-side revenue to continue to fluctuate based on seasonal factors that affect the advertising industry as a whole.

Buy-side advertising business

New Customer Acquisitions

On the buy-side of our business, our customers consist of purchasers of programmatic advertising inventory (ad space) looking to place their advertisements. We serve the needs of approximately 234 small and mid-sized clients, consisting of advertising space buyers, including small and mid-sized companies, large advertising holding companies (which may manage several agencies), independent advertising agencies and mid-market advertising service organizations. We serve a variety of customers across multiple industries including travel/tourism (including destination marketing organizations (“DMOs”)), education, energy, consumer packaged goods, healthcare, financial services (including cryptocurrency technologies) and other industries.

We are focused on increasing the number of customers that use our buy-side advertising businesses as their advertising partner. Our long-term growth and results of operations will depend on our ability to attract more customers, including DMOs, across multiple geographies.

Expand Sales to Existing Customers

Our customers understand the independent nature of our platform and relentless focus on driving results based on return on investment (“ROI”). Our value proposition is complete alignment across our entire digital supply platform beginning with the first dollar in and last dollar out. We are technology, DSP and media agnostic, and we believe our clients trust us to provide the best opportunity for success of their brands and businesses. As a result, our clients have been loyal, with approximately 90% client retention amongst the clients that represent approximately 80% of our revenue during the year ended December 31, 2023. In addition, we cultivate client relationships through our pipeline of managed and moderate serve clients that conduct campaigns through our platform. The managed services delivery model allows us to combine our technology with a highly personalized offering to strategically design and manage advertising campaigns.

Shift to Digital Advertising

Media has increasingly become more digital as a result of three key ongoing developments:

The resulting shift has enabled a variety of options for advertisers to efficiently target and measure their advertising campaigns across nearly every media channel and device. These efforts have been led by big- budgeted, large, multi-national corporations incentivized to cast a broad advertising net to support national brands.

Increased Adoption of Digital Advertising by Small-and Mid-Sized Companies

Only recently have small and mid-sized businesses begun to leverage the power of digital media in meaningful ways, as emerging technologies have enabled advertising across multiple channels in a highly localized nature. Campaign efficiencies yielding measurable results and higher advertising ROI have prompted these companies to begin utilizing digital advertising on an accelerated pace. We believe this market is rapidly expanding, and that small-to-mid-sized advertisers will continue to increase their digital spend.

Seasonality

In the advertising industry, companies commonly experience seasonal fluctuations in revenue. Historically, for our buy-side advertising segment, the second and third quarters of the year reflect our highest levels of advertising activity and the first quarter reflects the lowest level of such activity. We expect our buy-side revenue to continue to fluctuate based on seasonal factors that affect the advertising industry as a whole.

Components of Our Results of Operations

Revenues

For the sell-side advertising segment, we generate revenue by selling advertising inventory (digital ad units) that we purchase from publishers to advertisers through a process of monetizing ad impressions on our proprietary sell-side programmatic platform operating under the trademarked banner Colossus SSP. For the buy-side advertising segment, we generate revenue from customers that enter into agreements with us to provide managed advertising campaigns, which include digital marketing and media services to purchase digital advertising space, data and other add-on features.

In connection with our analysis of principal vs agent considerations, we have evaluated the specified goods or services and we considered whether we control the goods or services before they are provided to the customer including the three indicators of control. Based upon this analysis and our specific facts and circumstances, we concluded that we are a principal for the goods or services sold through both our sell-side advertising segment and our buy-side segment because we control the specified good or service before it is transferred to the customer and we are the primary obligor in the agreement with the publisher (sell-side) or customer (buy-side). Therefore, we report revenue on a gross basis inclusive of all supplier costs. We pay suppliers for the cost of digital media, advertising inventory, data and any add-on services or features.

Our revenue recognition policies are discussed in more detail under “Critical Accounting Estimates and Related Policies.”

Cost of revenues

For cost of revenues for our sell-side advertising segment, we pay publishers a fee, which is typically a percentage of the value of the ad impressions monetized through our platform. Cost of revenues consists primarily of publisher media fees and data center co-location costs. Media fees include the publishing and real time bidding costs to secure advertising space. For the buy-side advertising segment, cost of revenues consists primarily of digital media fees, third-party platform access fees, and other third-party fees associated with providing services to our customers.

Operating expenses

Operating expenses consist of compensation expenses related to our executive, sales, finance and administrative personnel (including salaries, commissions, stock-based compensation, bonuses, benefits and taxes); general and administrative expenses (including rent expense, professional fees, independent contractor costs, selling and marketing fees, administrative and operating system subscription costs, insurance, and amortization expense related to our intangible assets); and other expense (including transactions that are unusual in nature or which are occurring infrequently).

Other expense, net

Other income. Other income includes income associated with recovery of receivables and other miscellaneous credit card rebates.

Interest expense. Interest expense is mainly related to our debt as further described below in “—Liquidity and Capital Resources.” In connection with the acquisition of Orange 142, we issued mandatorily redeemable non-participating preferred A and B units, and in accordance with Accounting Standards Codification (“ASC”) 480, Distinguishing Liabilities from Equity, the value of these units was classified as a liability, and the corresponding distributions were recognized as interest expense for the year ended December 31, 2022. The preferred A and B units were dully redeemed as of February 2022.

Loss on early termination of line of credit. In January 2023, we entered into a Loan and Security Agreement (the “Loan Agreement”), by and among Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”), which provided for a revolving credit facility (the “Credit Facility”). In March 2023, we issued a notice of termination and recognized a loss on the write-off of the deferred financing fees.

Loss on redemption of non-participating preferred units. In February 2022, we redeemed the non-participating Class B Preferred Units and recognized a loss on the redemption of $0.6 million in connection with the write-off of the fair value associated with the units.

Forgiveness of Paycheck Protection Program Loan. During the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021, we obtained loans pursuant to the Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”), administered by the U.S. Small Business Administration (“SBA”). Forgiveness of PPP loans is recognized as a gain in the period it is granted. In March 2021, DDH LLC received the proceeds of $0.3 million. On April 11, 2022, this balance was forgiven.

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Results of Operations

Comparison of the Years Ended December 31, 2023 and 2022

The following tables set forth our consolidated results of operations for the periods presented (in thousands). The period-to-period comparison of results is not necessarily indicative of results for future periods.

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