WM Technology (MAPS) POS AMProspectus update (post-effective amendment)

WM Technology, Inc., a Delaware corporation (the “Company”), filed a Registration Statement on Form S-1 on December 2, 2021, which was declared effective on December 10, 2021, as amended by (i) Post-Effective Amendment No. 1 to Form S-1, which was filed on March 7, 2022, as further amended by (ii) Post-Effective Amendment No. 2 to Form S-1, which was filed on March 11, 2022, and subsequently declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) on March 15, 2022 (as amended and supplemented, the “Form S-1 Registration Statement”). On October 5, 2022, the Company filed Post-Effective Amendment No. 3 to the Form S-1 Registration Statement on Form S-3 to convert the Form S-1 Registration Statement into a registration statement on Form S-3, which was subsequently declared effective by the SEC on October 19, 2022 (the “Form S-3 Registration Statement”).

Post-Effective Amendment No. 4 to the Form S-3 Registration Statement on Form S-1 was filed by the Company on July 29, 2024 to convert the Form S-3 Registration Statement into a registration statement on Form S-1 (“Post-Effective Amendment No. 4”). Post-Effective Amendment No. 5 (“Post-Effective Amendment No. 5”) was filed by the Company on September 3, 2024 to include our unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements as of and for the three and six months ended June 30, 2024.

This Post-Effective Amendment No. 6 (“Post-Effective Amendment No. 6”) is being filed to include our unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements as of and for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2024.

The information included in this filing amends the Form S-3 Registration Statement and the prospectus contained therein. No additional securities are being registered under this Post-Effective Amendment No. 6. All applicable registration fees were paid at the time of the original filing of the Form S-1 Registration Statement.

On May 24, 2024, the Company filed its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, as amended on August 30, 2024 (the “Annual Report on Form 10-K”) and its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2024 (the “Q1 Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q”), on August 8, 2024, the Company filed its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2024 (the “Q2 Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q” and on November 12, 2024, the Company filed its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2024 (the “Q3 Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q’and together with the Q1 Quarterly Report and Q2 Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, the “Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q”). Interested parties should refer to such Annual Report on Form 10-K and the Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for more information.

You should rely only on the information provided in this prospectus and any applicable prospectus supplement. Neither we nor the Selling Securityholders have authorized anyone to provide you with different information. Neither we nor the Selling Securityholders are making an offer of these securities in any jurisdiction where the offer is not permitted. You should not assume that the information in this prospectus or any applicable prospectus supplement is accurate as of any date other than the date of the applicable document. Since the date of this prospectus, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects may have changed.

This prospectus is part of a registration statement that we filed with the SEC using the “shelf” registration process. Under this shelf registration process, the Selling Securityholders may, from time to time, sell the securities offered by them described in this prospectus. We will not receive any proceeds from the sale by such Selling Securityholders of the securities offered by them described in this prospectus.

Neither we nor the Selling Securityholders have authorized anyone to provide you with any information or to make any representations other than those contained in this prospectus or any applicable prospectus supplement or any free writing prospectuses prepared by or on behalf of us or to which we have referred you. Neither we nor the Selling Securityholders take responsibility for, or provide any assurance as to the reliability of, any other information that others may give you. Neither we nor the Selling Securityholders will make an offer to sell these securities in any jurisdiction where the offer or sale is not permitted.

We may also provide a prospectus supplement or post-effective amendment to the registration statement to add information to, or update or change information contained in, this prospectus. You should read both this prospectus and any applicable prospectus supplement or post-effective amendment to the registration statement together with the additional information to which we refer you in the section of this prospectus entitled “Where You Can Find More Information.”

On June 16, 2021 (the “Closing Date”), Silver Spike Acquisition Corp., our predecessor company, consummated the Business Combination (as defined below), which was previously announced, pursuant to that certain Agreement and Plan of Merger, dated December 10, 2020 (the “Merger Agreement”), by and among Silver Spike, Silver Spike Merger Sub LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and a wholly owned direct subsidiary of Silver Spike (“Merger Sub”), WM Holding Company, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (when referred to for pre-Business Combination periods, “Legacy WMH” and when referred to for post-Business Combination periods, “WMH LLC”), and Ghost Media Group, LLC, a Nevada limited liability company, solely in its capacity as the initial holder representative (the “Holder Representative”). Pursuant to the Merger Agreement, Merger Sub merged with and into Legacy WMH, whereupon the separate limited liability company existence of Merger Sub ceased and WMH LLC became the surviving company and continued in existence as a subsidiary of Silver Spike (the transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement, the “Business Combination”). On the Closing Date, and in connection with the closing of the Business Combination (the “Closing”), Silver Spike changed its name to WM Technology, Inc.

Unless the context indicates otherwise, references in this prospectus to the “Company,” “WMH,” “we,” “us,” “our” and similar terms refer to WM Technology, Inc. (f/k/a Silver Spike Acquisition Corp.) and its consolidated subsidiaries (including Legacy WMH). References to “Silver Spike” refer to our predecessor company prior to the consummation of the Business Combination.

This prospectus contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act.”). We have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations and projections about future events. All statements, other than statements of present or historical fact included in this prospectus, our future financial performance, strategy, expansion plans, future operations, future operating results, estimated revenues, losses, projected costs, prospects, plans and objectives of management are forward-looking statements. Any statements that refer to projections, forecasts or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions, are forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intends,” “may,” “might,” “plan,” “possible,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “will,” “would” or the negative of such terms or other similar expressions. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions about us that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Except as otherwise required by applicable law, we disclaim any duty to update any forward-looking statements, all of which are expressly qualified by the statements in this section, to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this prospectus. We caution you that these forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, most of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond our control.

Given these risks and uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Additional cautionary statements or discussions of risks and uncertainties that could affect our results or the achievement of the expectations described in forward-looking statements may also be contained in any accompanying prospectus supplement.

Should one or more of the risks or uncertainties described in this prospectus actually occur, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results and plans could differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning these and other factors that may impact the operations and projections discussed herein can be found in the section entitled “Risk Factors” and in our periodic filings with the SEC. Our SEC filings are available publicly on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.

You should read this prospectus and any accompanying prospectus supplement completely and with the understanding that our actual future results, levels of activity and performance as well as other events and circumstances may be materially different from what we expect. We qualify all of our forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements.

Our revenue declined in 2023 compared with 2022 and remained relatively flat when compared with 2021. Our revenue may continue to decline due to a number of factors including, but not limited to, slowdowns in the pace of issuance of new licenses to cannabis retailers and brands, and the decline in the number of new major geographic markets in which the sale of cannabis is permitted and to which we have not already expanded. Accordingly, we may not be able to generate sufficient revenue to offset potential cost increases and our ability to achieve and sustain profitability may be impacted. Additionally, we expect our costs to increase in future periods as we expend substantial financial and other resources on, among other things:

These expenditures may not result in additional revenue or the growth of our business. If we fail to continue to grow revenue or to achieve profitability, the market price of our securities could decline, and our business, operating results and financial condition could be adversely affected.

We compete in a dynamic, innovative market, which we expect will continue to evolve rapidly. We believe that our success is dependent on our ability to continue identifying and anticipating the needs of our clients and consumers and growing our two-sided marketplace by retaining our existing clients and consumers and adding new clients and consumers. This two-sided marketplace may grow more slowly than we expect or than it has grown in the past. As we have become larger through organic growth, the number of paying clients and monthly revenue per client have at times slowed or declined and may similarly slow or decline in the future, even if we continue to add clients and consumers on an absolute basis. Although we expect that our growth rates will continue to slow during certain periods as our business increases in size, if we fail to retain either our existing clients or consumers, the value of our two-sided marketplace will be diminished.

In addition, the costs associated with client and consumer retention are substantially lower than costs associated with the acquisition of new clients or consumers. We have incurred significant costs to attract clients and consumers to our platform and expect to incur significant additional costs to attract and retain clients and consumers for the foreseeable future. Because expenditures on our platform can represent a significant financial investment for our clients, our ability to retain clients depends in part on our ability to create and maintain high levels of client and

We have limited experience in determining the optimal pricing of our products and solutions, and we have in the past changed and may in the future change our pricing model. We also have historically priced our add-on premium offerings in a bid-auction format. Our ability to continue growing depends on our ability to maintain and expand our client base. If our clients do not believe the incremental additional cost we are charging for Weedmaps for Business is justified by the additional components included in our software bundles or that our add-on offerings do not generate proper return on investment, such clients may decline to continue using our services, and our revenue and other financial results may be adversely impacted.

While a key part of our business strategy is to add clients and consumers in our existing geographic markets, we also intend to expand our operations into new markets if and as cannabis continues to be legalized. Any such expansion places us in competitive markets with which we may be unfamiliar, requires us to invest significant time and resources, including to analyze the potential applicability of new and complicated regulations regarding the usage, sale and marketing of cannabis in such markets, and involves various risks, including the possibility that returns on such investments will not be achieved for several years, if at all. As a result of new market expansions, we may incur losses or otherwise fail to enter new markets successfully. In attempting to establish a presence in new markets, we expect to incur significant expenses and face various other challenges, such as expanding our compliance efforts to cover those new markets. These efforts may prove more expensive than we currently anticipate, and we may not succeed in increasing our revenues sufficiently to offset these expenses. Our current and any future expansion plans will require significant resources and management attention.

Our clients face competition from illegal market operators that are unlicensed and unregulated including illegal dispensaries and illicit market suppliers selling cannabis and cannabis-based products, particularly in states like California. Because these illegal market participants do not comply with the regulations governing the cannabis industry, their operations may have significantly lower costs. The perpetuation of the illegal market for cannabis may have a material adverse effect on our clients and our business, results of operations, as well as the perception of cannabis use. Furthermore, given the restrictions on regulated cannabis retail, it is possible that legal cannabis consumers revert to the illicit market as a matter of convenience. In particular, we rely on licensed cannabis businesses to drive the growth of our revenue and the use of our products, and the failure of the licensed cannabis markets to sufficiently overtake or eliminate the illegal market may have an adverse effect on our ability to grow our revenue, particularly if the slow pace of licensing allows the illegal market to gain a foothold, which may be more likely to occur in jurisdictions with an extended period of time between the authorization of consumer possession and the time at which licensed retailers become operational. In such jurisdictions, the timeline for licensed cannabis businesses overtaking the illegal market may be extended.

California represents one of the largest state legal cannabis markets in the United States, and approximately 52%, 56% and 61% of our revenue for the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021, were generated in California. As new markets develop and our current markets expand, we anticipate that there will be a further reduction in the percentage of our revenue generated in California, but we do not know with any certainty when and to what degree, if ever, this would occur. Moreover, the cannabis market in California is rapidly evolving, and we expect our growth in California to continue as the cannabis industry continues to develop, which could further concentrate our client base. As a result, our business and results of operations are particularly susceptible to, and may be disproportionately impacted by, trends in the California cannabis market, as well as adverse economic, regulatory, political and other conditions in California.

From time to time, we may be party to various claims and legal proceedings. For example, in August 2022, our board of directors determined to voluntarily report an internal complaint and subsequent internal investigation to the SEC. Since that date, we have responded to subpoenas from the SEC’s Division of Enforcement and on July 22, 2024, we reached an agreement in principle with the SEC staff to resolve the SEC staff’s investigation with respect to the Company. The settlement was approved by the SEC, and the administrative cease-and-desist order was entered in September 2024. In addition, on October 17, 2024, a putative shareholder class action complaint, captioned Seret Ishak v. WM Technology, Inc. et al., No. 2:24-cv-08959, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, naming us and certain former and current officers and/or directors of the Company and Silver Spike as defendants. The lawsuit alleges that we made material misrepresentations and/or omissions of material fact relating to historical public reporting of the Company’s monthly active users (“MAUs”) metric. In addition, on November 8, 2024, a shareholder derivative action, captioned DeGennaro v. Francis, et. al, Case No. 8:24-cv-02454, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against certain members of our Board of Directors and certain former and current officers. The derivative complaint alleges that the individual defendants authorized or permitted materially false statements and/or material omissions of fact relating to historical public reporting of MAUs. Further, on November 18, 2024, a shareholder derivative action, captioned Pearson v. Francis, et. al, Case No. 8:24-cv-02525 was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against certain former and current members of our Board of Directors and certain former and current officers. The derivative complaint alleges, among other things, that the individual defendants authorized or permitted materially false statements and/or material omissions of fact relating to historical public reporting of MAUs and corporate governance matters.

Regardless of the outcome, such proceedings can have an adverse impact on us because of legal costs, penalties and other sanctions, diversion of management resources, negative publicity and reputational harm and other factors.

Even when not merited, the defense of any lawsuits or legal proceedings, including potential securities litigation, is expensive and may divert management’s attention, and we may incur significant expenses in defending any lawsuits or legal proceedings. The results of litigation and other legal proceedings are inherently uncertain, and adverse judgments or settlements in some of these legal disputes may result in adverse monetary damages, penalties or injunctive relief against us, which could negatively impact our financial position, cash flows or results of operations. We evaluate all claims and proceedings to assess the likelihood of unfavorable outcomes and to estimate, if probable and estimable, the amount of potential losses. Based on these assessments and estimates, we may establish reserves, as appropriate. These assessments and estimates are based on the information available to management at the time and involve a significant amount of management judgment. Actual outcomes or losses may differ materially from our assessments and estimates.

Furthermore, while we maintain insurance for certain potential liabilities, such insurance does not cover all types and amounts of potential liabilities and is subject to various exclusions as well as caps on amounts recoverable. Even if we believe a claim is covered by insurance, insurers may dispute our entitlement to recovery for a variety of potential reasons, which may affect the timing and, if the insurers prevail, the amount of our recovery. In addition, any claims or litigation, even if fully indemnified or insured, could damage our reputation and make it more difficult to compete effectively or to obtain adequate insurance in the future.

U.S. federal law, and more specifically the CSA, proscribes the cultivation, processing, distribution, sale, advertisement and possession of cannabis. As a result, U.S. federal law enforcement authorities, in their attempt to regulate the illegal or unauthorized production, distribution, promotion, sale, possession, or use of cannabis, may seek to bring criminal actions against our clients under the CSA. On August 4, 2021, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California withdrew a subpoena served on us in September 2019, and informed us that it had no present plan to exercise its discretion to proceed further in the matter. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California also stated that its decision was not a grant of immunity, however, and there can be no assurance that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California — either the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California or another Department of Justice (“DOJ”) entity — will not initiate another investigation in the future. If our clients are found to be violating U.S. federal law relating to cannabis, they may be

Further, to the extent any law enforcement actions require us to respond to subpoenas, or undergo search warrants, for client records, cannabis businesses could elect to cease using our products. Until the U.S. federal government changes the laws with respect to cannabis, and particularly if the U.S. Congress does not extend the Omnibus Spending Bill’s protection of state medical cannabis programs, described below, to apply to all state cannabis programs, U.S. federal authorities could more strictly enforce current federal prohibitions and restrictions. An increase in federal enforcement against companies licensed under state cannabis laws could negatively impact the state cannabis industries and, in turn, our business, operating results, financial condition, brand and reputation.

Our clients are contractually required to represent, warrant and covenant to us that they conduct their business in compliance with applicable state law, which includes any applicable licensing requirements and the regulatory framework enacted by each state or province in which they do business. Clients further contractually agree to indemnify us for any damages we may suffer as a result of their noncompliance. We rely on our clients’ contractual representations, and generally do not verify them, other than with respect to the licensing information of our clients operating cannabis retail businesses, where we currently require such clients to provide evidence of a valid state or provincial cannabis license prior to their initial access and from time to time during the term of their use of such products. We require all operational cannabis retailer clients, including storefronts and delivery services, to display on their listing a valid, unexpired state-issued license number. We also currently require cannabis brand clients to provide evidence of a valid state or provincial license in order to get access to our listings and premium placement products. Additionally, many states do not require a license to sell CBD products at retail, and the illicit market could fraudulently attempt to use our CBD listings product to sell products containing THC. While we periodically audit and respond to reports related to our CBD listings, it is difficult to monitor the individual products listed, and marketing claims contained, in the listings of our CBD clients. As a result, some of our clients or their listings currently and in the future may not be in compliance with licensing and related requirements under applicable state or provincial laws and regulations. There could be legal enforcement actions against unlicensed or insufficiently licensed entities selling cannabis or CBD, which could negatively impact us.

Any legal or regulatory enforcement against us based on the business solutions that we offer, the third-party content available on our platform or noncompliance by our clients with licensing and other legal requirements, could subject us to various risks, including monetary penalties and the risk that we elect or are compelled to remove content from our platform and would likely cause us to experience negative publicity. Any of these developments could materially and adversely impact our business, operating results, financial condition, brand and reputation.

We generally do not, and cannot, ensure that our clients will conduct their business activities in a manner compliant with certain regulations and other legal requirements applicable to the cannabis industry, in whole or in part, even if our solutions provide features to support our clients’ compliance with such regulations and requirements. Their legal noncompliance could result in regulatory and even criminal actions against them, which could have a material adverse impact on our business and operating results or financial condition. For additional information, see the other

Although cannabis is a restricted controlled substance under the federal CSA, U.S. states have legalized cannabis to varying degrees through state-specific regulatory frameworks.

Laws and regulations affecting the cannabis industry in states and territories of the United States are continually changing. Any change or even the speed of changes could require us to incur substantial costs associated with compliance or alter our business plan, and could detrimentally affect our operations, revenue and profitability. Similarly, if the pace of issuance of new cannabis licenses is slower than expected, our ability to acquire new clients and grow our revenue could be harmed. The commercial cannabis industry is still a young industry, and we cannot predict the impact of the compliance regime to which it may be subject. We will incur ongoing costs and obligations related to regulatory compliance, and such costs may prove to be material. Failure to comply with regulations may result in additional costs for corrective measures, penalties or restrictions on our operations. In addition, changes in regulations, more vigorous enforcement thereof, or other unanticipated events could require extensive changes to our operations or increased compliance costs or give rise to material liabilities, which could have a material adverse effect on us.

Given the concentration of our revenue from the sale of listing products, any increase in the stringency of any applicable laws, including U.S. state, or Canadian federal laws and regulations relating to cannabis, or any escalation in the enforcement of such existing laws and regulations against the current or putative cannabis industry within any jurisdiction, could negatively impact the profitability or viability of cannabis businesses in such affected jurisdictions, which in turn could materially adversely affect our business and operating results.

In addition, although we have not yet been required to obtain any cannabis license as a result of existing cannabis regulations, it is possible that cannabis regulations may be enacted in the future that will require us to obtain such a cannabis license or otherwise seek to substantially regulate our business. Additionally, in some jurisdictions we may be required to seek and obtain a blanket approval of our platform in order to enable potential clients to access our services, and such approval may be subject to significant regulatory discretion. U.S. state, or Canadian federal and other non-U.S. jurisdictions’ cannabis laws and regulations are broad in scope and subject to evolving interpretations, which could require us to incur substantial costs associated with compliance or alter our business plan. Our failure to adequately manage the risk associated with future regulations and adequately manage future compliance requirements may adversely affect our business, our status as a reporting company and our public listing. Further, any adverse pronouncements from political leaders or regulators about businesses related to the legal cannabis industry could adversely affect the price of our securities.

The cannabis industry, and the complex regulatory regime applicable to it, is evolving rapidly and may develop in ways that we cannot anticipate. The pace of dramatic change in the cannabis industry makes it difficult to assess our future prospects, and you should evaluate our business in light of the risks and difficulties we may encounter as the industry continues to evolve. These risks and difficulties include:

If the demand for our platform and software solutions does not develop as we expect, or if we fail to address the needs of our clients or consumers, our business will be harmed. We may not be able to successfully address these risks and difficulties, which could harm our business and operating results.

We are dependent on public support, continued market acceptance and the proliferation of consumers in the legalized cannabis markets in states and territories of the United States. While we believe that the market and opportunities in the space will continue to grow, we cannot predict the future growth rate or size of the market. Any downturns in, or negative outlooks on, the cannabis industry may adversely affect our business and financial condition.

Expansion of our business is in part dependent upon continued legislative authorization, including by voter initiatives and referendums, of cannabis in various jurisdictions worldwide. Any number of factors could slow, halt, or even reverse progress in this area. For example, in 2023, ballot measures to allow for adult use succeeded in Ohio, but failed in Oklahoma. In addition, implementation of state laws is often a multi-year process following a ballot initiative or legislation. Further, progress for the industry, while encouraging, is not assured. While there may be ample public support for legislative action in a particular jurisdiction, numerous factors could impact the legislative process, including lobbying efforts by opposing stakeholders as well as legislators’ disagreements about how to legalize cannabis as well as the interpretation, implementation, and enforcement of applicable laws or regulations. Any one of these factors could slow or halt the legalization of cannabis, which would negatively impact our ability to expand our business.

Additionally, the expansion of our business also depends on jurisdictions in which cannabis is currently legalized not narrowing, limiting or repealing existing laws legalizing and regulating cannabis, or altering the regulatory landscape in a way that diminishes the viability of cannabis businesses in those jurisdictions. For example, in April 2019, a lawsuit was filed in the Fresno County Superior Court challenging the California Bureau of Cannabis Control¹ regulation that allowed cannabis businesses to deliver products in local jurisdictions which had prohibited the sale of cannabis. In November 2020, in a mixed result, the Fresno County Superior Court upheld the state regulation that allows licensed cannabis delivery companies to offer services anywhere in the state, while also affirming that cities and counties can forbid those operations, though enforcement of the bans is also up to the local governments. While a recent amendment (S.B. 1186), which became effective in January 2024, prevents local governments from banning the delivery of medical cannabis to patients, adult-use cannabis storefront retail and delivery operations may continue to be restricted by some cities and counties. The imposition or potential enforcement of local jurisdiction delivery bans may negatively impact the viability and attractiveness of our offerings in California going forward. We generated approximately 52%, 56% and 61% of our revenue for the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021 in California, and such developments may in turn have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition. For more information, see “—Our business is concentrated in California, and, as a result, our performance may be affected by factors unique to the California market.” Additionally, if such challenges are successful in any other jurisdictions that have legalized or are in the process of legalizing cannabis, our ability to expand our business would be negatively impacted.

Our paying clients face challenges including, among other factors, limited access to capital (relative to other industries) and the impact of Section 280E of the Code (which, as applied to certain cannabis businesses, disallows the deduction of “ordinary and necessary” business expenses, such as below-the-line deductions, essentially resulting in federal income tax liability calculated based on gross income), limiting cash flow and liquidity of many industry participants. Additionally, the cannabis industry faced price deflation in 2023 and 2022 further pressuring many of our paying clients. This resulted in financial hardship for certain cannabis companies, including some of our paying clients which caused elevated churn and bad debt expense in 2023 and 2022. If our clients struggle financially or do not remain viable, it can negatively impact our ability to generate new revenue, maintain existing revenue or collect on outstanding receivables. We have customers with past due balances and our failure to collect a significant portion of such balances could adversely affect our cash and provision for doubtful accounts. See “Accounts Receivable, Net” of Note 2, “Summary of Significant Accounting Policies” to the audited consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus.

Our success depends on our platform providing consumers with useful information about our clients and their products, which in turn depends on the content provided by consumers and clients. For example, the platform will not provide useful information about cannabis brands or products if clients or consumers do not contribute content that is helpful and reliable, or if they remove previously submitted content.

Additionally, if we filter out helpful content or fail to filter out unhelpful content, clients and consumers alike may stop or reduce their use of our platform and products, which could negatively impact our business. Allegations made against us, whether or not accurate, can materially harm our reputation and operating results. While we are continually seeking to improve our ability to identify and remove offensive, biased, unreliable, inauthentic, duplicative, fraudulent or otherwise unhelpful content, and have implemented safeguards on the platform to facilitate those efforts, we cannot guarantee that those efforts or safeguards will be effective or adequate. If our website is not perceived as providing useful, accurate and current information about our clients and their products, consumers may stop or reduce their use of our platform, which could suppress the demand for our advertising placements and adversely affect our business and operating results.

We believe that our business is highly dependent on our brand identity and our reputation, which is critical to our ability to attract and retain clients and consumers. We also believe that the importance of our brand recognition and reputation will continue to increase as competition in the markets in which we operate continues to develop. Our success in this area will depend on a wide range of factors, some of which are within our control and some of which are not. The factors affecting our brand recognition and reputation that are within our control include the following:

Damage to our reputation and loss of brand equity from one or more of the factors listed above may reduce demand for our platform and have an adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition. Moreover, any attempts to rebuild our reputation and restore the value of our brand may be costly and time-consuming, and such efforts may not ultimately be successful.

The cannabis information market is rapidly evolving and is currently characterized by intense competition, due in part to relatively low barriers to entry. We expect competition to further intensify in the future as cannabis continues to be legalized and regulated, new technologies are developed and new participants enter the cannabis information market. Our direct competitors for individual components or parts of our platform include cannabis-focused, two-sided networks like Leafly (for retailer listing pages) and Dutchie and Jane Technologies (for menu embed and orders functionality). In addition, our platform also may compete with current or potential products and solutions offered by internet search engines and advertising networks, like Google, general two-sided networks like Yelp, various other newspaper, television, media companies, outdoor billboard advertising, and online merchant platforms, such as Shopify, Square and Lightspeed. For example, Uber Eats announced a partnership with a Canadian retailer in November 2021 to allow consumers to place cannabis orders for pickup via Uber Eats. If the regulatory regime for cannabis becomes more settled and the legal market for cannabis becomes more accepted, competition may further intensify as new participants may be encouraged to enter the cannabis information market, including established companies, such as tobacco and alcohol companies. Such companies may have substantially greater financial, technical and other resources than us or existing market participants. Additionally, as consumers and cannabis industry clients demand richer data, integrations with other cannabis industry participants such as point-of-sale providers and loyalty service providers may become increasingly important. If we are unable to complete such new integrations as quickly as our competitors, or improve our existing integrations based on legacy systems, we may lose market share to such competitors. Our current and future competitors may also enjoy other competitive advantages, such as greater name recognition, more varied or more focused offerings, better market acceptance and larger budgets. Some of our competitors previously raised significant amounts of capital. For example, in August 2021, Jane announced the closing of a $100 million Series C round of funding; in October 2021, Dutchie announced the closing of a $350 million Series D round of funding at a valuation of $3.75 billion; and in February of 2022, Leafly became a public company and began trading on Nasdaq via SPAC business combination. Our competitors may be able to use such capital infusions to more successfully enter new markets opening up.

Additionally, as the legalization of cannabis continues, cannabis cultivators, distributors and retailers have and likely will continue to experience consolidation as existing cannabis businesses seek to obtain greater market share and purchasing power and new entrants seek to establish a significant market presence. Consolidation of retailers in the cannabis industry could reduce the size of our potential client base and give remaining clients greater bargaining or purchasing power. This may in turn erode the prices for our advertising placements and result in decreased margins. Consolidation could particularly affect smaller cannabis businesses, with whom we have historically conducted the majority of our business. Further, heightened competition between cannabis businesses could ultimately have a negative impact on the viability of individual market participants, which could reduce or eliminate their ability to purchase our products and solution.

If we are unable to compete effectively for any of these reasons, we may be unable to maintain our operations or develop our products and solutions, and as a result our business and operating results may be adversely affected.

We have experienced rapid organic growth in our headcount and operations, which placed substantial demands on management and our operational infrastructure. As a result of both macroeconomic and industry challenges, as well as misalignment between our organizational growth and business growth, we completed a substantial reduction in force in 2022 and experienced significant executive departures during 2023 and 2022. As a result of these changes, many of our current employees have been with us for less than 24 months. To execute on our growth strategy, we will need to continue to increase the productivity of our current employees as well as hire, train and manage new employees, as well as improve existing, and implement new, transaction processing, operational and financial systems, procedures and controls. We intend to continue making substantial investments in our technology, sales and data infrastructure. As our business matures, we may make periodic changes and adjustments to our organization in response to various internal and external considerations, including market opportunities, the competitive landscape, new and enhanced products, acquisitions, sales performance, availability of employee talent and costs, while maintaining the beneficial aspects of our existing corporate culture, which we believe fosters innovation, teamwork and a passion for our products and clients. In some instances, these changes have resulted in a temporary lack of focus and reduced productivity, which may occur again in connection with any future changes to our organization and may negatively affect our results of operations. If we are unable to adapt quickly and effectively to changes or adjustments to our organization, our business will be harmed. If we are unable to manage our employee operations and organization effectively, the quality of our platform, efficiency of our operations, and management of our expenses could suffer, which could negatively impact our brand, business, profitability and operating results.

Our future success depends on our continued ability to recruit, train, retain and motivate key personnel, including Doug Francis, our Chief Executive Officer and Principal Executive Officer, and Brian Camire, our General Counsel.

Competition for qualified personnel in the technology industry is intense, particularly in Southern California, where we are headquartered. Additionally, we face additional challenges in attracting, retaining and motivating highly qualified personnel due to our relationship to the cannabis industry, which is rapidly evolving and has varying levels of social acceptance. The loss of the services of a significant portion of our workforce or any member of our senior management or the inability to hire or retain qualified personnel could adversely affect our ability to execute our business plan and harm our operating results. We generally do not maintain fixed term employment contracts or key man life insurance with any of our employees.

In addition, from July 2023 through November 2024, we had an interim Chief Financial Officer, which, as noted in our Notification of Late Filing on Form 12b-25 with the SEC, had an impact on our ability to complete our financial statements. If we are unable to recruit and retain a qualified replacement in a timely manner it could result in management, operating and financial reporting difficulties, which could have an adverse effect on our business.

Many consumers locate our website through internet search engines, like Google, and paid digital advertisements in certain jurisdictions. The prominence of our website in response to internet searches is a critical factor in the attractiveness of our advertising placements, and our digital marketing efforts, such as search engine optimization, are intended to improve our search result rankings and draw additional traffic to our website. Visits to our website could decline significantly if we are listed less prominently or fail to appear in search results for any reason, including ineffective implementation of our digital marketing strategies or any change by a search engine to its ranking algorithms or advertising policies.

We use our sales team to build relationships with our client base. Our sales team builds and maintains relationships with clients primarily through phone and email contact, which is designed to allow us to cost-effectively service a large number of clients. We have significantly invested in our enterprise and field sales teams, and we may need to further employ more resource-intensive sales methods to continue to attract and retain clients, particularly as we increase the number of our clients and our client base employs more sophisticated marketing operations, strategies and processes. This could cause us to incur higher sales and marketing expenses, which could adversely affect our business and operating results.

Our platform is available for download on iOS and Android, and is also accessible online. The availability of our platform and its various functionalities to a significant percentage of our clients is subject to standard policies and terms of service of these third-party platforms, which govern the promotion, distribution and operation generally of our platform. In addition, each platform provider has broad discretion to change and interpret its terms of service and other policies with respect to our platform and its functionalities, and those changes and interpretations may be unfavorable. A platform provider may also change its fee structure, add fees associated with access to and use of its platform, or restrict how users can access the platform, which would similarly be unfavorable.

For example, we have at times been unable to offer our WM Orders functionality in our iOS Weedmaps mobile application and are currently unable to offer such functionality in our Android Weedmaps mobile application due to restrictions imposed by the Apple iTunes App Store and Google Play, respectively. While our platform is still available in the Apple iTunes App Store and on Google Play for download, there can be no assurance that our platform or all of its functionalities will remain available in the immediate or longer term. To the extent that we are limited or prohibited from making some or all of our solutions available through any third-party platform, including the Apple iTunes App Store or the Google Play Store, we may need, or choose, to provide our solutions through alternative venues that may be more difficult for potential users to access. Limits on, or discontinuation of, access to our mobile platform or its various functionalities could, in turn, have a material adverse impact on utilization of our platform, our business and our ability to attract clients and consumers.

It is critical to our success that clients and consumers within our geographic markets be able to access our platform at all times. We have previously experienced service disruptions, and in the future, we may experience service disruptions, outages or other performance problems due to a variety of factors, including infrastructure changes, human or software errors, capacity constraints and distributed denial of service, or DDoS, fraud or security attacks. In some instances, we may not be able to identify the cause or causes of these performance problems within an acceptable period of time. It may become increasingly difficult to maintain and improve the availability of our platform, especially during peak usage times and as our products become more complex and our traffic increases. If

We expect to continue making significant investments in the functionality, performance, reliability, design, security and scalability of our platform. We may experience difficulties with the development of our platform that could delay or prevent the implementation of new solutions and enhancements. Software development involves a significant amount of time and resources for our product development team, and we may not be able to continue making those investments in the future. To the extent we are not able to continue successfully improving and enhancing our platform, our business could be adversely affected.

We have engaged third-party service providers to perform credit and debit card processing services for client’s payments to us, and we understand that some of our clients use those services. We also may engage third-party service providers in the future to provide fraud analysis services and we may integrate with third-party service providers used by our clients to process payments made by consumers if done in a manner compliant with applicable federal and local law. If these service providers do not perform adequately or if our relationships, or the relationships of our clients, with these current or future service providers were to terminate, our ability or the ability of our clients to process payments could be adversely affected and our business could be harmed. The laws and regulations related to payments are complex and are potentially impacted by tensions between federal and state treatment of the vaporization, tobacco, nicotine, cannabis, hemp and cannabis accessories industries. These laws and regulations also vary across different jurisdictions in the United States, Canada and globally. As a result, we are required to spend significant time and effort to comply with those laws and regulations. Any failure or claim of our failure to comply, or any failure by our third-party service providers to comply, could cost us substantial resources, could result in liabilities, or could force us to stop offering our clients the ability to pay with credit cards, debit cards and bank transfers. As we expand the availability of these payment methods or offer new payment methods to our clients in the future, we may become subject to additional regulations and compliance requirements.

Due to the constantly evolving and complex laws and regulations applicable to our industry, third-party merchant banks and third-party payment processors may consider our business a high risk. This could cause a third party to discontinue its services to us, and we may not be able to find a suitable replacement. If this were to occur, we would need to collect from our clients using less efficient methods, which could adversely impact our collections, revenues and financial performance. Additionally, if a third party were to discontinue its services to us or if the applicable laws and regulations were to evolve in a way that impacted us negatively, we may not be able to realize our plans of expanding our business offerings, which could have a material adverse effect on our operations and our plans for expansion. For more information, see “—We are subject to industry standards, governmental laws, regulations and other legal obligations, particularly related to privacy, data protection and information security and any actual or perceived failure to comply with such obligations could harm our business” below.

Further, through our agreement with our third-party credit card processors, we are subject to payment card association operating rules and certification requirements, including restrictions on product mix and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (“PCI-DSS”). We are also subject to rules governing electronic funds transfers. Any change in these rules and requirements could make it difficult or impossible for us to comply. Additionally, any data breach or failure to hold certain information in accordance with PCI-DSS may have an adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

We calculate and track performance metrics with internal tools, which are not independently verified by any third-party. While we believe our metrics are reasonable estimates of our user or client base for the applicable period

Our clients, analysts and investors may rely on our metrics, including additional metrics we may disclose in the future, as a representation of our performance. If these third parties do not perceive such metrics to be accurate representations of our business, or if we discover material inaccuracies in our user metrics, our reputation may be harmed and retailers may be less willing to list a business on our platform, which could negatively affect our business, financial condition, or results of operations.

Our clients use our products and services as they believe the value received from paying for our products and services justifies the cost of those services. We believe the overall level of engagement of our users with our clients is critical to our success and our long-term financial performance. As we evolve our user engagement and advertising strategy and practices, we may not be successful in improving user engagement in a cost-efficient manner, or at all. Certain operating decisions, including our substantially decreased usage of pop-under advertisements, may significantly decrease our user engagement and/or traffic, increase the cost of generating user engagement and/or traffic or decrease our overall success rate in promoting engagement on our platform. Declining user growth, engagement or traffic could make us less attractive to our clients, which may seriously harm our business. In addition, we continue to compete with other companies to attract and retain consumer attention. A number of factors have affected and could potentially negatively affect our reported user engagement and/or traffic and our overall user engagement with our clients, including if:

Any decrease to consumer retention, growth, or engagement could render our products less attractive to consumers, advertisers, or partners, and could seriously harm our business.

From time to time, third parties have misappropriated data from our website through website scraping, software robots or other means, and aggregated this data on their websites with data from other companies. Additionally, copycat websites have misappropriated data on our network and attempted to imitate our brand or the functionality of our website. We may be unable to detect all such websites in a timely manner and even timely technological and legal measures may be insufficient to halt their operations or protect us against the impact of the operation of such websites. Regardless of whether we can successfully enforce our rights against the operators of these websites, any measures that we may take could require us to expend significant financial or other resources, which could harm our business, operating results or financial condition. In addition, to the extent that such activity creates confusion among clients or consumers, decreases the likelihood that consumers use our platform to access information, or reduces the distinctiveness of our products in the marketplace, our brand and business could be harmed.

In the ordinary course of our business, we may collect, receive, store, generate, use, protect, secure, dispose of, transmit, disclose, or otherwise make accessible (collectively “process”) proprietary, confidential, and sensitive data, including personal data, intellectual property, and trade secrets. We rely upon third parties (such as service providers) for certain data processing-related activities, such as data centers, cloud hosting platforms, marketing communications, and application providers. For example, we rely on data centers and other technologies and services provided by third parties in order to host our cloud-based infrastructure that operates our business. If any of these services becomes unavailable or otherwise is unable to serve our requirements due to extended outages, interruptions, or facility closure, or because it is no longer available on commercially reasonable terms, our expenses could increase, our ability to manage finances could be interrupted and our operations otherwise could be disrupted or otherwise impacted until appropriate substitute services, if available, are identified, obtained and implemented. Additionally, we rely on a number of third-party “cloud-based” providers of corporate infrastructure services relating to, among other things, human resources, electronic communication services, some financial functions and systems used to provide solutions to our clients, and we are therefore dependent on the security systems of these providers. We may also share or receive sensitive data with or from third parties.

Our ability to monitor these third parties’ information security practices is limited, and these third parties may not have adequate information security measures in place. If our third-party service providers experience a security

Cyberattacks, malicious internet-based activity, online and offline fraud, and other similar activities threaten the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of our sensitive information and information technology systems, and those of the third parties upon which we rely. Such threats are prevalent and continue to rise, are increasingly difficult to detect, and come from a variety of sources, including traditional computer “hackers,” threat actors, “hacktivists,” organized criminal threat actors, personnel (such as through theft or misuse), sophisticated nation states, and nation-state-supported actors. Some actors now engage and are expected to continue to engage in cyber-attacks, including without limitation nation-state actors for geopolitical reasons and in conjunction with military conflicts and defense activities. During times of war and other major conflicts, we, the third parties upon which we rely, and our customers may be vulnerable to a heightened risk of these attacks, including retaliatory cyber-attacks, that could materially disrupt our systems and operations, supply chain, and ability to produce, sell and distribute our goods and services.

We and the third parties upon which we rely are subject to a variety of evolving threats, including but not limited to social-engineering attacks (including through deep fakes, which may be increasingly more difficult to identify as fake, and phishing attacks), malicious code (such as viruses and worms), malware (including as a result of advanced persistent threat intrusions), denial-of-service attacks, credential stuffing attacks, credential harvesting, personnel misconduct or error, ransomware attacks, supply-chain attacks, software bugs, server malfunctions, software or hardware failures, loss of data or other information technology assets, adware, telecommunications failures, earthquakes, fires, floods, attacks enhanced or facilitated by AI, and other similar threats. In particular, severe ransomware attacks are becoming increasingly prevalent – particularly for companies like ours that are engaged in critical infrastructure or manufacturing – and can lead to significant interruptions in our operations, ability to provide our products or services, loss of sensitive data and income, reputational harm, and diversion of funds. Extortion payments may alleviate the negative impact of a ransomware attack, but we may be unwilling or unable to make such payments due to, for example, applicable laws or regulations prohibiting such payments.

Remote work has become more common and has increased risks to our information technology systems and data, as more of our employees utilize network connections, computers and devices outside our premises or network, including working at home, while in transit and in public locations.

Future or past business transactions (such as acquisitions or integrations) could expose us to additional cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities, as our systems could be negatively affected by vulnerabilities present in acquired or integrated entities’ systems and technologies. Furthermore, we may discover security issues that were not found during due diligence of such acquired or integrated entities, and it may be difficult to integrate companies into our information technology environment and security program.

While we have implemented security measures designed to protect against security incidents, there can be no assurance that these measures will be effective. We take steps designed to detect, mitigate, and remediate vulnerabilities in our information systems (such as our hardware and/or software, including that of third parties upon which we rely). For example, we implement bug fixes and upgrades as part of our regular system maintenance, which may lead to system downtime. Even if we are able to implement the bug fixes and upgrades in a timely manner, any history of inaccuracies in the data we collect for our clients, or unauthorized access or damage to, or the loss, acquisition, or inadvertent release or exposure of confidential or other sensitive data could cause our reputation to be harmed and result in claims against us, and cannabis businesses may elect not to purchase our products or, in the case of existing clients, renew their agreements with us or we may incur increased insurance costs. The costs associated with any material defects or errors in our software or other performance problems may be substantial and could harm our operating results and growth prospects. In addition to bugs, we may not detect and remediate all identified vulnerabilities including on a timely basis. Further, we may experience delays in developing and deploying remedial measures and patches designed to address identified vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities could be exploited and result in a security incident.

Any actual or perceived security incident could damage our reputation and brand, result in decreased utilization of our platform or prevent users from using our platform, expose us to fines and penalties, government investigations

Any of these impacts or circumstances arising from an actual or perceived security incident could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, reputation and relationships with clients and consumers.

Furthermore, while our errors and omissions insurance policies include liability coverage for certain of these matters, if we experienced a significant security incident, we could be subject to claims or damages that exceed our insurance coverage. We also cannot be certain that our insurance coverage will be adequate for data handling or data security liabilities actually incurred, that insurance will continue to be available to us on economically reasonable terms, or at all, or that any insurer will not deny coverage as to any future claim. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceed available insurance coverage, or the occurrence of changes in our insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or insurance requirements, could have a material and adverse effect on our business, including our financial condition, operating results, and reputation.

Macroeconomic conditions, including but not limited to inflation, uncertain credit and global financial markets, recent and potential future disruptions in access to bank deposits or lending commitments due to bank failures; geopolitical events, including the military conflicts between Russia and Ukraine and Israel and Hamas; and the occurrence of a catastrophic event, including but not limited to severe weather, war, or terrorist attack, could adversely impact our business, financial condition and operating results. We also face risks related to health epidemics, like the COVID-19 pandemic and other adverse health developments. For example, in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, governments implemented significant measures intended to control the spread of the virus, including closures, quarantines, travel restrictions and other social distancing directives.

To the extent that restrictions or prevention and mitigation measures are implemented in connection with any future pandemic or outbreak of disease, there may be an adverse impact on global economic conditions and consumer confidence and spending, which could materially and adversely affect our operations as well as our relationships with clients and consumers. For instance, despite the overall increases in demand described below, some of our clients’ operations were initially significantly disrupted in certain jurisdictions, causing a temporary significant decrease in activity on our platform in those jurisdictions.

Shelter-in-place orders and similar regulations resulting from catastrophic events could impact our client’s ability to operate their businesses, consumers’ ability to pick up orders, and our client’s ability to make deliveries. Such events have in the past caused, and may in the future cause, a temporary closure of our clients’ businesses, either due to government mandate or voluntary preventative measures, and many of our clients may not be able to withstand prolonged interruptions to their businesses, and may be forced to go out of business. Any limitations on or disruptions or closures of our clients’ businesses could adversely affect our business. Further, we may experience a decrease in new clients due to a lack of financial resources or a decline in new markets as businesses and financial markets deal with the impact of any future catastrophic events. Further, these conditions may impact our ability to access financial markets to obtain the necessary funding to expand our business, which may adversely affect our liquidity and working capital.

It is not currently possible to ascertain the overall impact of such an event on our business. However, if such an event occurs, the event may harm our business, and may also have the effect of heightening many of the other risks described in this “Risk Factors” section.

You should consider our business and prospects in light of the risks and difficulties we encounter in the uncertain and rapidly evolving market for our solutions. Because the cannabis information market is new and evolving, predicting its future growth rate and size is difficult. This reduces our ability to accurately evaluate our future prospects and forecast quarterly or annual performance. In addition to the other risk factors discussed in this section, factors that may contribute to the variability of our quarterly and annual results include:

We seek to provide the best experience for the clients and consumers who use our platform. Some of our changes may have the effect of reducing our short-term revenue or profitability if we believe that the benefits will ultimately improve our business and financial performance over the long term. Any short-term reductions in revenue or profitability could be greater than planned or the changes mentioned above may not produce the long-term benefits that we expect, in which case our business and operating results could be adversely affected.

We are subject to export control and import laws and regulations, including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations, U.S. Customs regulations, various economic and trade sanctions regulations administered by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended, the U.S. domestic bribery statute contained in 18 U.S.C. § 201, the U.S. Travel Act, and other state and national anti-bribery laws in the countries in which we conduct activities. Anti-corruption laws are interpreted broadly and prohibit companies and their employees, agents, contractors, and other partners from authorizing, promising, offering, or providing, directly or indirectly, improper payments or anything else of value to recipients in the public or private sector. The FCPA also requires public companies to make and keep books and records that accurately and fairly reflect the transactions of the corporation and to devise and maintain an adequate system of internal accounting controls. We can be held liable for the corrupt or other illegal activities of our employees, agents, contractors, and other partners, even if we do not explicitly authorize or have actual knowledge of such activities.

Any violation of the laws and regulations described above may result in substantial civil and criminal fines and penalties, imprisonment, the loss of export or import privileges, debarment, tax reassessments, breach of contract and fraud litigation, reputational harm, and other consequences.

We sell our Weedmaps for Business offering in the United States and have a limited number of non-monetized listings in several other countries including Austria, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. We anticipate growing our business, in part, by continuing to expand our foreign operations. As we continue our expansion, we may enter new foreign markets where we have limited or no experience marketing and deploying our platform. If we fail to launch or manage our foreign operations successfully, our business may suffer. Additionally, as our foreign operations expand, or more of our expenses are denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, our operating results may be more greatly affected by fluctuations in the exchange rates of the currencies in which we do business. In addition, as our foreign operations continue to grow, we are subject to a variety of risks inherent in doing business internationally, including:

In the ordinary course of business, we process personal data and other sensitive information, including proprietary and confidential business data, intellectual property, and sensitive third-party data. Our data processing subjects us to various federal, state, provincial and foreign laws and regulations, as well as other obligations including contractual obligations, industry standards and internal and external policies related to privacy, data protection, and information security.

In the United States, federal, state, and local governments have enacted numerous data privacy and security laws, including data breach notification laws, personal data privacy laws, consumer protection laws (e.g., Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act), and other similar laws (e.g., wiretapping laws). For example, the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (“TCPA”) impose specific requirements on communications with customers. For example, the TCPA imposes various consumer consent requirements and other restrictions on certain telemarketing activity and other communications with consumers by phone, fax or text message. TCPA violations can result in significant financial penalties, including penalties or criminal fines imposed by the Federal Communications Commission or fines of up to $1,500 per violation imposed through private litigation or by state authorities.

In the past few years, numerous U.S. states—including California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, and Utah—have enacted comprehensive privacy laws that impose certain obligations on covered businesses, including providing specific disclosures in privacy notices and affording residents with certain rights concerning their personal data. As applicable, such rights may include the right to access, correct, or delete certain personal data, and to opt-out of certain data processing activities, such as targeted advertising, profiling, and automated decision-making. The exercise of these rights may impact our business and ability to provide our products and services. Certain states also impose stricter requirements for processing certain personal data, including sensitive information, such as conducting data privacy impact assessments. These state laws allow for statutory fines for noncompliance. For example, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (collectively, “CCPA”), applies to personal data of consumers, business representatives, and employees who are California residents, and requires businesses to provide specific disclosures in privacy notices and honor requests of such individuals to exercise certain privacy rights. The CCPA provides for fines of up to $7,500 per intentional violation and allows private litigants affected by certain data breaches to recover significant statutory damages for certain data breaches. A number of other proposals are being considered or have passed at the federal, state, and local levels, and we expect more states to pass similar laws in the future. Many foreign countries and governmental bodies, including Canada, the United Kingdom (“UK”), and the European Union (“E.U.”) and other relevant jurisdictions where we conduct business, have laws and regulations concerning the processing of personal information. For example, in Canada, the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, or PIPEDA and various related provincial laws may apply to our operations. Further, Canada has robust anti-spam legislation, the Anti-Spam Legislation, or CASL. The penalties for non-compliance under CASL are significant. In addition, the E.U.’s General Data Protection Regulation, or the EU GDPR, and the United Kingdom’s GDPR, or UK GDPR (collectively, “GDPR”), may also apply to our operations. The GDPR provides for substantial penalties for noncompliance. For example, under the GDPR, companies may face temporary or definitive bans on data processing and other corrective actions; fines of up to 20 million Euros under the EU GDPR, 17.5 million pounds sterling under the UK GDPR or, in each case, 4% of annual global revenue, whichever is greater; or private litigation related to processing of personal data brought by classes of data subjects or consumer protection organizations authorized at law to represent their interests.

We may be subject to new laws governing the privacy of consumer health data. For example, Washington’s My Health My Data Act broadly defines consumer health data, places restrictions on processing consumer health data (including imposing stringent requirements for consents), provides consumers certain rights with respect to their health data, and creates a private right of action to allow individuals to sue for violations of the law. Other states are considering and may adopt similar laws. We are also bound by contractual obligations related to data privacy and security, and our efforts to comply with such obligations may not be successful. For example, certain privacy laws, such as the CCPA, require our customers to impose specific contractual restrictions on their service providers.

In the ordinary course of business, we may transfer personal data from Europe and other jurisdictions to the United States or other countries. Europe and other jurisdictions have enacted laws requiring data to be localized or limiting

Although there are currently various mechanisms that may be used to transfer personal data from the EEA and UK to the United States in compliance with law, such as the EEA standard contractual clauses, the UK’s International Data Transfer Agreement / Addendum, and the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and the UK extension thereto (which allows for transfers to relevant U.S.-based organizations who self-certify compliance and participate in the Framework), these mechanisms are subject to legal challenges, and there is no assurance that we can satisfy or rely on these measures to lawfully transfer personal data to the United States.

If there is no lawful manner for us to transfer personal data from the EEA, the UK or other jurisdictions to the United States, or if the requirements for a legally-compliant transfer are too onerous, we could face significant adverse consequences, including, increased exposure to regulatory actions, substantial fines and penalties, the inability to transfer data and work with partners, vendors and other third parties, and injunctions against our processing or transferring of personal data related to our EU users. Additionally, companies that transfer personal data out of the EEA and UK to other jurisdictions, particularly to the United States, are subject to increased scrutiny from regulators, individual litigants, and activist groups. Some European regulators have ordered certain companies to suspend or permanently cease certain transfers out of Europe for allegedly violating the GDPR’s cross-border data transfer limitations.

We publish privacy policies, marketing materials and other statements regarding data privacy and security. If these policies, materials or statements are found to be deficient, lacking in transparency, deceptive, unfair, or misrepresentative of our practices, we may be subject to investigation, enforcement actions by regulators or other adverse consequences.

Obligations related to data privacy and security (and consumers’ data privacy expectations) are evolving, becoming increasingly stringent, and creating uncertainty. These obligations may be modified, interpreted and applied in an inconsistent manner from one jurisdiction to another, and may conflict with one another, other requirements or legal obligations. Future laws, regulations, standards and other obligations, or amendments or changes in the interpretation of existing laws, regulations, standards and other obligations, could impair our or (or the third parties upon whom we rely) ability to collect, use, disclose or otherwise process information relating to employees or consumers, which could decrease demand for our applications, increase our costs and impair our ability to maintain and grow our client and consumer bases and increase revenue. We may at times fail (or be perceived to have failed) in our efforts to comply with our data privacy and security obligations. Moreover, despite our efforts, our personnel or third parties on whom we rely may fail to comply with such obligations, which could negatively impact our business operations. Any failure or perceived failure by us or the third parties upon whom we rely to comply with federal, state, provincial or foreign laws or regulations, industry standards, contractual obligations or other legal obligations may result in governmental enforcement actions (e.g., investigations, fines, penalties, audits, inspections, and similar) and prosecutions, private litigation (including class actions) and mass arbitration demands, adverse publicity that could cause employees, clients and consumers to lose trust in us, additional reporting requirements and/or oversight, bans on processing personal data, and orders to destroy or not use personal data. In particular, plaintiffs have become increasingly more active in bringing privacy-related claims against companies, including class claims and mass arbitration demands. Some of these claims allow for the recovery of statutory damages on a per violation basis, and, if viable, carry the potential for monumental statutory damages, depending on the volume of data and the number of violations. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our reputation, business, or financial condition, including but not limited to: loss of customers; interruptions or stoppages in our business; inability to process personal data or to operate in certain jurisdictions; limited ability to develop or commercialize our products; expenditure of time and resources to defend any claim or inquiry; adverse publicity; or substantial changes to our business model or operations.

We are subject to general business regulations and laws as well as federal, state, provincial and foreign laws specifically governing the internet. Existing and future laws and regulations, narrowing of any existing legal safe harbors, or previous or future court decisions may impede the growth of the internet or online products and solutions, and increase the cost of providing online products and solutions. These laws may govern, among other issues,

We provide educational information regarding the use and potential effects of various types of cannabis products through our platform, including information regarding therapeutic uses for cannabis. If our content, or content we obtain from third parties, contains inaccuracies, it is possible that consumers or others may sue us for various causes of action. Although our website and mobile applications contain terms and conditions, including disclaimers of liability, that are intended to reduce or eliminate our liability, the law governing the validity and enforceability of online agreements and other electronic transactions is evolving. We could be subject to claims by third parties that our online agreements with consumers that provide the terms and conditions for use of our websites and mobile applications are unenforceable. A finding by a court that these agreements are invalid and that we are subject to liability could harm our business and require costly changes to our business.

For content that we publish or provide ourselves, we have editorial procedures in place to provide quality control of the information that we publish or provide. However, we cannot assure you that our editorial and other quality control procedures will be sufficient to ensure that there are no errors or omissions in particular content. Even if potential claims do not result in liability to us, investigating and defending against these claims could be expensive and time-consuming and could divert management’s attention away from our operations. In addition, our business is based on establishing the reputation of our platform as trustworthy and dependable sources of educational information. Allegations of impropriety or inaccuracy, even if unfounded, could harm our reputation and business.

We may be subject to legal claims relating to information made available through our platform, including claims for defamation, libel, negligence and copyright or trademark infringement, among others. These claims or allegations could divert management time and attention away from our business and result in significant costs to investigate and defend, regardless of the merits of the claims or allegations. In some instances, we may elect or be compelled to remove content, or may be forced to pay substantial damages or administrative monetary penalties, if we are unsuccessful in our efforts to defend against these claims or allegations. If we elect, or are compelled, to remove valuable content from our platform, our platform or services may become less useful to consumers, which could have a negative impact on our business and financial performance. This risk may also be greater in certain jurisdictions outside of the United States where our protections from such liability may be unclear.

We believe that our long-term growth depends in part on our ability to develop and monetize additional aspects of our platform. Developing new products and solutions may involve significant investments of capital, time, resources and managerial attention. We have limited experience with developing, implementing and managing revenue streams other than our core listing business, and there can be no assurance that we will successfully implement any new products or solutions. External factors, such as additional regulatory compliance obligations, may also affect the successful implementation of new products and solutions through our platform.

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

In the course of running our business, we may need to raise capital, certain forms of which may cause dilution to our stockholders. If our need is due to unforeseen circumstances or material expenditures or if our operating results are worse than expected, then we cannot be certain that we will be able to obtain additional financing on favorable terms, if at all, and these additional financings could cause further dilution to our stockholders. Due to the current legal status of cannabis under U.S. federal law, we have experienced, and may in the future experience, difficulty attracting additional debt or equity financing. In addition, the current legal status of cannabis may increase the cost of capital now and in the future. Debt financing, if available, may involve agreements that include equity conversion rights, covenants limiting or restricting our ability to take specific actions, such as incurring additional debt, expending capital, or declaring dividends, or that impose financial covenants on us that limit our ability to achieve our business objectives. Debt financings may contain provisions, which, if breached, may entitle lenders to accelerate repayment

We do not collect sales and value-added tax as part of our client agreements in the United States or Canada, based on our determination that such tax is not applicable to our platform. Sales and use, value-added and similar tax laws and rates vary greatly by jurisdiction. If we are deemed an agent for the clients on our platform under state or other applicable tax law, we may be deemed responsible for collecting and remitting sales taxes directly to certain states or jurisdictions. It is possible that one or more states or other jurisdictions could seek to impose sales, use or other tax obligations on us with regard to the ordering functionality that we offer our clients. These taxes may be applicable to past sales. In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in South Dakota v. Wayfair that a U.S. state may require an online retailer with no in-state property or personnel to collect and remit sales tax on sales to the state’s residents may permit wider enforcement of sales tax collection requirements, which may increase the jurisdictions in which we may be required to collect and/or remit taxes. A successful assertion that we should be collecting sales, use or other taxes or remitting such taxes directly to states or other jurisdictions could result in substantial tax liabilities for past sales and additional administrative expenses and increase the cost of our products and solutions, which could harm our business and operating results.

We are subject to taxes, such as income, payroll, sales, use, value-added, property and goods and services taxes, in both the United States and various foreign jurisdictions. Our domestic and foreign tax liabilities are subject to various jurisdictional rules regarding the timing and allocation of revenue and expenses. Additionally, the amount of income taxes paid is subject to our interpretation of applicable tax laws in the jurisdictions in which we operate and to changes in tax laws. Significant judgment is required in determining our worldwide provision for income taxes and other tax liabilities. From time to time, we may be subject to income and non-income tax audits. While we believe we have complied with all applicable income tax laws, there can be no assurance that a governing tax authority will not have a different interpretation of the law and assess us with additional taxes. Should we be assessed with additional taxes, there could be a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. In addition, audits may require ongoing time and attention from our management, which could limit their ability to focus on other aspects of our business and impact our business in the future.

Our future effective tax rate may be affected by such factors as changes in tax laws, changing interpretation of existing laws or regulations, the impact of accounting for equity-based compensation, the impact of accounting for business combinations, changes in our international organization and changes in overall levels of income before tax. In addition, in the ordinary course of our global business, there are many intercompany transactions and calculations where the ultimate tax determination is uncertain. Although we believe that our tax estimates are reasonable, we cannot ensure that the final determination of tax audits or tax disputes will not be different from what is reflected in our historical income tax provisions and accruals.

We are subject to the income tax laws of the United States, Canada and several other foreign jurisdictions. New income, sales, use or other tax laws, statutes, rules, regulations, or ordinances could be enacted at any time, which could affect the tax treatment of our U.S. and foreign earnings. Any new taxes could adversely affect our domestic and foreign business operations and our business and financial performance. In addition, existing tax laws, statutes, rules, regulations, or ordinances, such as Section 280E of the Code, discussed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K, could be interpreted, changed, modified or applied adversely to us. Furthermore, changes to the taxation of undistributed foreign earnings could change our future intentions regarding reinvestment of such earnings. The foregoing items could have a material adverse effect on our business, cash flow, financial condition or operating results.

A material weakness is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of our annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented, or detected and corrected on a timely basis. Effective internal controls are necessary for us to provide reliable financial reports and prevent fraud.

Under the supervision of and with the participation of our management, we assessed the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2023, using the criteria set forth by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) in Internal Control — Integrated Framework (2013). Based on management’s assessment of our internal control over financial reporting, under the criteria described in the preceding sentence, management has identified material weaknesses in internal control during the year ended December 31, 2023.

The following entity-level material weaknesses have been identified: We did not fully maintain components of the COSO framework, including elements of the control environment, risk assessment, information and communication and monitoring activities components, relating to (i) developing general control activities over technology to support the achievement of objectives across the entity, (ii) sufficiency of processes related to identifying and analyzing risks to the achievement of objectives, including technology, across the entity, and (iii) sufficiency of selecting and developing control activities that contribute to the mitigation of risks to the achievement of objectives to acceptable levels.

The entity-level material weaknesses contributed to other material weaknesses within our system of internal control over financial reporting as follow:

Additionally, these material weaknesses could result in a misstatement of any account balances or disclosures that would result in a material misstatement to the annual or interim consolidated financial statements that would not be prevented or detected.

If we are unable to remediate these material weaknesses or to develop and maintain an effective system of internal control over financial reporting, we may not be able to accurately report our financial results in a timely manner, which may adversely affect investor confidence in us and materially and adversely affect our business and operating results.

Management has been implementing and continues to implement measures to remediate the material weaknesses. However, until the remediation plan is implemented, tested, and deemed effective, we cannot assure that our actions will adequately remediate the material weaknesses or that additional material weaknesses in our internal controls will not be identified in the future. Additionally, these remediation measures may be time consuming and costly and there is no assurance that these initiatives will ultimately have the intended effects. For example, in the year ended December 31, 2022, we identified a material weakness in internal control related to ineffective information technology general controls in the areas of user access and program change-management over certain information technology systems that support our financial reporting processes. We took measures to remediate this material weakness and our remediation efforts concluded as of June 30, 2023 when it was affirmed such measures had been implemented. However, as of July 2023, administrative access to the sandbox environment where development activities take place was extended to users with administrative access to the production environment, thereby negating the remediation efforts taken. This access was not subject to our monthly monitoring control activity and persisted through the remainder of the year ended December 31, 2023. The lack of successful completion of our remediation efforts related to this material weakness identified for the year ended December 31, 2022 is reflected in the first bullet of our 2023 material weaknesses discussed above.

If we identify any new material weaknesses in the future, any such newly identified material weakness could limit our ability to prevent or detect a misstatement of our accounts or disclosures that could result in a material misstatement of our annual or interim financial statements. In such case, we may be unable to maintain compliance with securities law requirements regarding timely filing of periodic reports in addition to applicable stock exchange listing requirements. As a result, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reporting, access to capital markets and perceptions of our creditworthiness could be adversely affected and our stock price may decline as a result. Also, the existence of any current or future material weakness could require management to devote significant time and incur significant expense to remediate any such material weakness, and management may not be able to remediate any such material weakness in a timely manner, or at all. These events could have a material and adverse effect on our business, operating results, financial condition and prospects. We cannot assure you that the measures we have taken to date, or any measures we may take in the future, will be sufficient to avoid potential future material weaknesses.

As discussed in Note 2 to our audited consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus, we determined to restate our unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements as of and for the three months ended March 31, 2023, six months ended June 30, 2023 and nine months ended September 30, 2023 after we identified errors in the application of our revenue recognition policies related to the cash collection of a certain subset of our customers that had been placed on a cash basis. As a result of this error and the resulting restatement of our unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements for the impacted periods, we have incurred, and may continue to incur, unanticipated costs for accounting and legal fees in connection with or related to the restatement, and have become subject to a number of additional risks and uncertainties, including the increased possibility of litigation and regulatory inquiries. Any of the foregoing may affect investor confidence in the accuracy of our financial disclosures and may raise reputational risks for our business, both of which could harm our business and financial results.

We are a holding company with no material assets other than our ownership of units of WMH LLC (“WMH Units”) and our managing member interest in WMH LLC. As a result, we have no independent means of generating revenue or cash flow. Our ability to pay taxes, make payments under the tax receivable agreement (the “TRA”) and pay dividends will depend on the financial results and cash flows of WMH LLC and its subsidiaries and the distributions we receive from WMH LLC. Deterioration in the financial condition, earnings or cash flow of WMH LLC and its subsidiaries for any reason could limit or impair WMH LLC’s ability to pay such distributions. Additionally, to the extent that we need funds and WMH LLC and/or any of its subsidiaries are restricted from making such distributions under applicable law or regulation or under the terms of any financing arrangements, or WMH LLC is otherwise unable to provide such funds, it could materially adversely affect our liquidity and financial condition.

WMH 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, WMH LLC’s taxable income will be allocated to holders of WMH Units, including us. Accordingly, we will be required to pay income taxes on our allocable share of any net taxable income of WMH LLC. Under the terms of the amended operating agreement, WMH LLC is obligated to make tax distributions to holders of WMH Units (including us) calculated at certain assumed tax rates. In addition to tax expenses, we will also incur expenses related to our operations, including payment obligations under the TRA agreement (and the cost of administering such payment obligations), which could be significant. We intend to cause WMH LLC to make distributions to holders of WMH Units in amounts sufficient to cover all applicable taxes (calculated at assumed tax rates), relevant operating expenses, payments under the TRA and dividends, if any, declared by us. However, as discussed below, WMH LLC’s ability to make such distributions may be subject to various limitations and restrictions including, but not limited to, restrictions on distributions that would either violate any contract or agreement to which WMH LLC is then a party, including debt agreements, or any applicable law, or that would have the effect of rendering WMH LLC insolvent. If our cash resources are insufficient to meet our obligations under the TRA and to fund our obligations, we may be required to incur additional indebtedness to provide the liquidity needed to make such payments, which could materially 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 TRA for any reason, such payments will be deferred and will accrue interest until paid; provided, however, that nonpayment for a specified period may constitute a material breach of a material obligation under the TRA and therefore accelerate payments due under the TRA.

Additionally, although WMH LLC generally will not be subject to any entity-level U.S. federal income tax, it may be liable under the Code and related guidance for adjustments to its tax return, absent an election to the contrary. In the event WMH LLC’s calculations of taxable income are incorrect, its members, including us, in later years may be subject to material liabilities pursuant to these provisions.

Dividends on our Class A Common Stock, if any, will be paid at the discretion of our board of directors, which will consider, among other things, our business, operating results, financial condition, current and expected cash needs, plans for expansion and any legal or contractual limitations on its ability to pay such dividends. Financing arrangements may include restrictive covenants that restrict our ability to pay dividends or make other distributions to our stockholders. In addition, WMH LLC is generally prohibited under Delaware law from making a distribution to a member to the extent that, at the time of the distribution, after giving effect to the distribution, the liabilities of WMH LLC (with certain exceptions) exceed the fair value of its assets. WMH LLC’s subsidiaries are generally subject to similar legal limitations on their ability to make distributions to WMH LLC. If WMH LLC does not have sufficient funds to make distributions, our ability to declare and pay cash dividends may also be restricted or impaired.

As discussed above, WMH LLC will generally be required from time to time to make pro rata distributions in cash to us and the other holders of WMH Units at certain assumed tax rates in amounts that are intended to be sufficient

Acquisitions by us of Legacy WMH common units in the Business Combination and subsequent taxable redemptions or exchanges of Class A units representing limited liability company interests of WMH LLC (the “Class A Units”) by the WMH LLC equity holders for shares of Class A Common Stock or cash pursuant to the exchange agreement have resulted, and are expected to continue to result in, favorable tax attributes for us.

In connection with the Business Combination, we entered into the TRA with WMH Class A equity holders and their representative. Under the TRA, we generally are required to pay to the WMH LLC Class A equity holders, in the aggregate, 85% of the amount of cash savings, if any, in U.S. federal, state and local income tax or franchise tax that we actually realize as a result of (i) increases to the tax basis of WMH LLC’s assets resulting from acquisitions by us of Legacy WMH common units for cash in the Business Combination and taxable redemptions or exchanges of Class A Units for shares of Class A Common Stock or cash pursuant to the exchange agreement, (ii) tax benefits related to imputed interest or (iii) tax attributes resulting from payments made under the TRA. The payment obligations under the TRA are our obligations and not obligations of WMH LLC.

The payments we will be required to make under the TRA may be substantial. Potential payments will depend on the future tax savings that we will be realize (or, in certain circumstances, are deemed to realize), and the TRA payments made by us will be calculated based in part on the market value of the Class A Common Stock at the time of each redemption or exchange under the exchange agreement and the prevailing applicable tax rates applicable to us over the life of the TRA and will depend on us generating sufficient taxable income to realize the tax benefits that are subject to the TRA. Payments under the TRA are not conditioned on the WMH LLC Class A equity holders’ continued ownership of us. See Note 16, “Income Taxes,” to our audited consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus.

Payments under the TRA will be based on the tax reporting positions we determine, and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) or another tax authority may challenge all or a part of the existing tax basis, tax basis increases, or other tax attributes subject to the TRA, and a court could sustain such challenge. The parties to the TRA will not reimburse us for any payments previously made if such tax basis, or other tax benefits are subsequently disallowed, except that any excess payments made to a party under the TRA will be netted against future payments otherwise to be made under the TRA, if any, after the determination of such excess.

In addition, the TRA provides that if (1) we breach any of our material obligations under the TRA (including in the event that we are more than three months late making a payment that is due under the TRA, except in the case of certain liquidity exceptions) (2) we are subject to certain bankruptcy, insolvency or similar proceedings, or (3) at any time, we elect an early termination of the TRA, our obligations under the TRA (with respect to all Class A Units, whether or not such units have been exchanged or redeemed before or after such transaction) would accelerate and become payable in a lump sum amount equal to the present value of the anticipated future tax benefits calculated based on certain assumptions, including that we would have sufficient taxable income to fully utilize the deductions

Finally, because we are a holding company with no operations of our own, our ability to make payments under the TRA depends on the ability of WMH LLC to make distributions to us. To the extent that we are unable to make payments under the TRA for any reason, such payments will be deferred and will accrue interest until paid, which could negatively impact our results of operations and could also affect our liquidity in periods in which such payments are made.

Cannabis, other than hemp (defined by the U.S. government as Cannabis sativa L. with a THC concentration of not more than 0.3% on a dry weight basis), is a prohibited controlled substance under the CSA. Even in states or territories that have legalized cannabis to some extent, the cultivation, possession and sale of cannabis all violate the CSA and are punishable by imprisonment, substantial fines and forfeiture. Moreover, individuals and entities may violate federal law if they aid and abet another in violating the CSA, or conspire with another to violate the law, and violating the CSA is a predicate for certain other crimes, including money laundering laws and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the federal government has the authority to regulate and criminalize the sale, possession and use of cannabis, even for individual medical purposes, regardless of whether it is legal under state law. Since 2014, however, the U.S. government has not prioritized the enforcement of those laws against cannabis companies complying with state law and their vendors. No reversal of that policy of prosecutorial discretion is expected under a Biden administration given his actions on cannabis to date, and statements of Attorney General Merrick Garland discussed further below, although prosecutions against state-legal entities cannot be ruled out entirely at this time.

On January 4, 2018, then U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memorandum for all U.S. Attorneys (the “Sessions Memo”) rescinding certain past DOJ memoranda on cannabis law enforcement, including the Memorandum by former Deputy Attorney General James Michael Cole (the “Cole Memo”) issued on August 29, 2013, under the Obama administration. Describing the criminal enforcement of federal cannabis prohibitions against those complying with state cannabis regulatory systems as an inefficient use of federal investigative and prosecutorial resources, the Cole Memo gave federal prosecutors discretion not to prosecute state law compliant cannabis companies in states that were regulating cannabis, unless one or more of eight federal priorities were implicated, including use of cannabis by minors, violence, or the use of federal lands for cultivation. The Sessions Memo, which remains in effect, states that each U.S. Attorney’s Office should follow established principles that govern all federal prosecutions when deciding which cannabis activities to prosecute. As a result, federal prosecutors could and still can use their prosecutorial discretion to decide to prosecute even state legal cannabis activities. Since the Sessions Memo was issued over five years ago, however, U.S. Attorneys have generally not prioritized the targeting of state law compliant entities. In March 2023, Attorney General Merrick Garland testified in a Congressional hearing that the Department of Justice was continuing its work on a new memorandum regarding cannabis enforcement. Garland stated that the policy will be “very close to what was done in the Cole memorandum” but was yet to be finalized. Though no official timeline has been announced, industry participants expect such a memorandum to be issued in 2024.

We cannot assure that each U.S. Attorney’s Office in each judicial district where we operate will not choose to enforce federal laws governing cannabis sales against state-legal companies like our business clients. The basis for the federal government’s lack of recent enforcement with respect to the cannabis industry extends beyond the strong public sentiment and ongoing prosecutorial discretion. Since 2014, versions of the U.S. omnibus spending bill have included

In USA vs. McIntosh, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the provision prohibits the DOJ from spending funds to prosecute individuals who engage in conduct permitted by state medical-use cannabis laws and who strictly comply with such laws. The court noted that, if the spending bill provision were not continued, prosecutors could enforce against conduct occurring during the statute of limitations even while the provision was previously in force. Other courts that have considered the issue have ruled similarly, although courts disagree about which party bears the burden of proof of showing compliance or noncompliance with state law. Our policies do not prohibit our state-licensed cannabis retailers from engaging in the cannabis business for adult use that is permissible under state and local laws. Consequently, certain of our retailers currently (and may in the future) sell adult-use cannabis, if permitted by such state and local laws now or in the future, and therefore may be outside any protections extended to medical-use cannabis under the spending bill provision. This could subject our clients to greater and/or different federal legal and other risks as compared to businesses where cannabis is sold exclusively for medical use, which could in turn materially adversely affect our business. Furthermore, any change in the federal government’s enforcement posture with respect to state licensed cannabis sales, including the enforcement postures of individual federal prosecutors in judicial districts where we operate, would result in our inability to execute our business plan, and we would likely suffer significant losses with respect to client base, which would adversely affect our operations, cash flow and financial condition.

Additionally, financial transactions involving proceeds generated by cannabis-related conduct can form the basis for prosecution under the federal money laundering statutes, unlicensed money transmitter statutes and the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, as amended (the “Bank Secrecy Act”). The penalties for violation of these laws include imprisonment, substantial fines and forfeiture. Prior to the DOJ’s rescission of the Cole Memo, supplemental guidance from the DOJ issued under the Obama Administration directed federal prosecutors to consider the federal enforcement priorities enumerated in the Cole Memo when determining whether to charge institutions or individuals with any of the financial crimes described above based upon cannabis-related activity. With the rescission of the Cole Memo, there is increased uncertainty and added risk that federal law enforcement authorities could seek to pursue money laundering charges against entities or individuals engaged in supporting the cannabis industry.

Federal prosecutors have significant discretion and no assurance can be given that the federal prosecutor in each judicial district where we operate will not choose to strictly enforce the federal laws governing cannabis production or distribution. Any change in the federal government’s enforcement posture with respect to state-licensed cultivation of cannabis, including the enforcement postures of individual federal prosecutors in judicial districts where we operate, would result in our inability to execute our business plan, and we would likely suffer significant losses with respect to our investment in cannabis facilities in the United States. Furthermore, following any such change in the federal government’s enforcement position, we could be subject to prosecution, which could lead to imprisonment and/or the imposition of penalties, fines, or forfeiture.

During his campaign, President Biden promised federal reform on cannabis, including decriminalization generally. In 2022, President Biden signed into law the “Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act,” a bill aimed at easing restrictions on cannabis research – bipartisan legislation which is the first standalone cannabis reform bill to pass both the House and Senate. Additionally, on October 6, 2022, President Biden issued a presidential proclamation pardoning federal convictions for simple marijuana possession offenses, encouraging state governors to do the same on the state level where permissible, and requesting that the Secretary of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) and the Attorney General initiate an administrative process to review cannabis’s Schedule I classification under the CSA. On August 29, 2023, HHS issued a letter to the DEA recommending that cannabis be reclassified as a Schedule III controlled substance under the CSA. On May 16, 2024, President Biden announced that the U.S. Attorney General initiated proceedings to transfer cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III, through an NPRM published on May 21, 2024. This is a momentous change whose full implications are currently unknown. The DEA’s decision to reclassify cannabis would neither legalize nor likely eliminate current state cannabis programs. If placed under Schedule III, cannabis will remain a controlled substance and state-legal programs will continue to operate

Additionally, although the current U.S. Attorney General is expected to issue policy guidance to federal prosecutors that they should not interfere with cannabis businesses operating in compliance with states’ laws, any such guidance would not have the force of law, and could not be enforced by the courts. The President alone cannot legalize medical cannabis, and as states have demonstrated, legalizing medical cannabis can take many different forms.

On January 20, 2021, President Biden formally nominated Merrick Garland to his cabinet as the U.S. Attorney General. Confirmation hearings for Attorney General Garland began on February 22, 2021. On the first date of his confirmation hearing, Attorney General Garland stated that he did not see enforcement of federal cannabis law as a high priority use of resources for the DOJ: “This is a question of the prioritization of our resources and prosecutorial discretion. It does not seem to me a useful use of limited resources that we have, to be pursuing prosecutions in states that have legalized and that are regulating the use of marijuana, either medically or otherwise. I don’t think that’s a useful use. I do think we need to be sure there are no end-runs around the state laws that criminal enterprises are doing. So that kind of enforcement should be continued. But I don’t think it’s a good use of our resources, where states have already authorized. That only confuses people, obviously, within the state.” In April 2022, Attorney General Garland reiterated that prosecuting the possession of cannabis is “not an efficient use” of federal resources, especially “given the ongoing opioid and methamphetamine epidemic[s]” facing the nation. And, in March 2023, Attorney General Garland testified that the Department of Justice was continuing its progress on a new cannabis enforcement guidance, which he described as “very close to what was done in the Cole memorandum.” While the statement is not a promise to avoid federal interference with state cannabis laws, it does continue to signal that the enforcement priorities of DOJ lie elsewhere.

Furthermore, while industry observers are hopeful that there will continue to be incremental federal cannabis policy reform, we cannot provide assurances about the content, timing or chances of passage of a bill legalizing cannabis. In recent years, members of the U.S. Congress from both parties have introduced bills to end the federal cannabis prohibition, by de-scheduling cannabis completely and regulating it, as well as incremental reform bills, including the “Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act” described above. While the timing of federal reform remains unknown, it is expected that federal policy on cannabis will continue becoming more, rather than less, permissive, and legislative efforts to legalize cannabis or cannabis banking at the national level are likely to continue in 2024. However, the outcome of the 2024 presidential election could impact reform in ways that are unpredictable. Accordingly, we cannot predict the timing of any change in federal law or possible changes in federal enforcement. In the unlikely event that the federal government were to reverse its long-standing hands-off approach to the state legal cannabis markets and start more broadly enforcing federal law regarding cannabis, we would likely be unable to execute our business plan, and our business and financial results would be adversely affected.

We and our clients are subject to a variety of laws and regulations in the United States regarding financial transactions. Violations of the U.S. anti-money laundering (“AML”) laws require proceeds from enumerated criminal activity, which includes trafficking in cannabis in violation of the CSA. Financial institutions that both we and our clients rely on are subject to the Bank Secrecy Act, as amended by Title III of the USA Patriot Act. In Canada, the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (Canada), as amended and the rules and regulations thereunder and the Criminal Code (Canada) apply. The penalties for violation of these laws include imprisonment, substantial fines and forfeiture.

In 2014, the DOJ under the Obama administration directed federal prosecutors to exercise restraint in prosecuting AML violations arising in the state legal cannabis programs and to consider the federal enforcement priorities enumerated in the Cole Memo when determining whether to charge institutions or individuals based upon cannabis-related activity. Around the same time, the Treasury Department issued guidance that clarified how financial institutions can provide services to cannabis-related businesses, consistent with financial institutions’ obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act. Then-Attorney General Sessions’ rescission of the DOJ’s guidance on the state cannabis programs in early 2018 increased uncertainty and heightened the risk that federal law enforcement authorities could seek to pursue money laundering charges against entities, or individuals, engaged in supporting the cannabis industry.

We are subject to a variety of laws and regulations in the United States, Canada and elsewhere that prohibit money laundering, including the Proceeds of Crime and Terrorist Financing Act (Canada) and the Money Laundering Control Act (U.S.), as amended, and the rules and regulations thereunder and any related or similar rules, regulations or guidelines issued, administered or enforced by governmental authorities in the United States, Canada or any other jurisdiction in which we have business operations or to which we export our offerings. If any of our clients’ business activities, any dividends or distributions therefrom, or any profits or revenue accruing thereby are found to be in violation of money laundering statutes, our clients could be subject to criminal liability and significant penalties and fines. Any violations of these laws, or allegations of such violations, by our clients could disrupt our operations and involve significant management distraction and expenses. As a result, a significant number of our clients facing money laundering charges could materially affect our business, operations and financial condition. Additionally, proceeds from our clients’ business activities, including payments we have received from those clients, could be subject to seizure or forfeiture if they are found to be illegal proceeds of a crime transmitted in violation of anti-money laundering laws, which could have a material adverse effect on our business. Finally, if any of our clients are found to be violating the above statutes, this could have a material adverse effect on their ability to access or maintain financial services, as discussed in detail below, which could, in turn, have a material adverse effect on our business.

Although we do not grow or sell cannabis products, our general connection with the cannabis industry may hamper our efforts to do business or establish collaborative relationships with others that may fear disruption or increased regulatory scrutiny of their own activities.

We are dependent on the banking industry to support the financial functions of our products and solutions. Our business operating functions including payroll for our employees and other expenses are reliant on traditional banking. Additionally, many of our clients pay us via wire transfer to our bank accounts, or via checks that we deposit into our banks. We require access to banking services for both us and our clients to receive payments in a timely manner. Lastly, to the extent we rely on any lines of credit, these could be affected by our relationships with financial institutions and could be jeopardized if we lose access to a bank account. Important components of our offerings depend on client accounts and relationships, which in turn depend on banking functions. Most federal and federally-insured state banks currently do not serve businesses that grow and sell cannabis products on the stated ground that growing and selling cannabis is illegal under federal law, even though the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), issued guidelines to banks in February 2014 that clarified how financial institutions can provide services to cannabis-related businesses, consistent with financial institutions’ obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act. While the federal government has generally not initiated financial crimes prosecutions against state-law compliant cannabis companies or their vendors, the government theoretically could, at least against companies in the adult-use markets. The continued uncertainty surrounding financial transactions related to cannabis activities and the subsequent risks this uncertainty presents to financial institutions may result in their discontinuing services to the cannabis industry or limit their ability to provide services to the cannabis industry or ancillary businesses providing services to the cannabis industry.

As a result of federal-level illegality and the risk that providing services to state-licensed cannabis businesses poses to banks, cannabis-related businesses face difficulties accessing banks that will provide services to them. When cannabis businesses are able to find a bank that will provide services, they face extensive client due diligence in light of complex state regulatory requirements and guidance from FinCEN, and these reviews may be time-consuming and costly, potentially creating additional barriers to financial services for, and imposing additional compliance requirements on, us and our clients. FinCEN requires a party in trade or business to file with the IRS, a Form 8300 report within 15 days of receiving a cash payment of over $10,000. While we receive very few cash payments for the products we sell, if we fail to comply with these laws and regulations, the imposition of a substantial penalty could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. We cannot assure that our strategies and techniques for designing our products and solutions for our clients will operate effectively and

We do not sell cannabis, or products that contain cannabis; accordingly, our company is not part of the cannabis industry that generally has been restricted from using federal and federally insured banks. However, because of “weed” in our name and the fact that our revenue is generated largely from companies licensed as operators in the cannabis industry, banks have and may continue to consider us to be subject to banking restrictions related to cannabis. If we were to lose any of our banking relationships or fail to secure additional banking relationships in the future, we could experience difficulty and incur increased costs in the administration of our business, paying our employees, accepting payments from clients, each of which may adversely affect our reputation or results of operations. Additionally, the closure of many or one of our bank accounts due to a bank’s reluctance to provide services to a business working with state legal cannabis businesses would require significant management attention from us and could materially adversely affect our business and operations. In addition to banks and financial institutions, merchant processors may take a similar view of the risks of working with us since we provide services to cannabis businesses, and loss of any of our merchant processor relationships could have similar results. Moreover, Visa and Mastercard currently prohibit processing of transactions involving the sale of cannabis on their networks, and Mastercard has reportedly issued cease-and-desist letters to certain banks and payment processors to stop allowing such transactions on its debit cards. Although consumers cannot currently purchase products on the Weedmaps marketplace and we do not currently use, nor have we historically used, any of our merchant processing relationships to process payments for cannabis transactions, to the extent Visa or Mastercard extend these restrictions to cannabis-related businesses, our merchant processing relationships could be terminated, or we could be prevented from processing any Visa or Mastercard transactions, which could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations. Furthermore, our clients may be adversely impacted by Visa’s or Mastercard’s policies, which could in turn have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

Participating in transactions involving proceeds derived from cannabis may constitute criminal money laundering. It is a federal crime to engage in certain transactions involving the proceeds of a “specified unlawful activity” (a “SUA”) when those transactions are designed to promote an underlying SUA, or conceal the source of the funds. Violations of the CSA and violations of a state’s laws may be deemed to be SUAs. In the event that any of our investments, or any proceeds thereof, any dividends or distributions therefrom, or any profits or revenues were found to be in violation of anti-money laundering legislation or otherwise, such transactions may be viewed as proceeds of crime under one or more of statutes of the United States or any other applicable jurisdiction. This could restrict or otherwise jeopardize our ability to declare or pay dividends, effect other distributions, or subsequently require us to repatriate such funds back to the United States from Canada or other foreign jurisdictions.

If any of our clients’ business activities, any dividends or distributions therefrom, or any profits or revenue accruing thereby are found to be in violation of money laundering statutes, we and our investors could be subject to criminal liability and significant penalties and fines. Any violations of these laws, or allegations of such violations could disrupt our operations and involve significant management distraction and expenses. Facing money laundering charges could materially affect our business, operations and financial condition. Additionally, proceeds from our clients’ business activities, if found to be in violation of anti-money laundering laws, could subject payments we have received from those clients to seizure or forfeiture, if they are found to be illegal proceeds of a crime committed by a client, which could have a material adverse effect on our business and our investors. Finally, if we or any of our clients are found to be violating the above statutes, this could have a material adverse effect on our ability to access or maintain financial services, as discussed in detail below, which could, in turn, have a material adverse effect on our business.

We currently have no need or plans to seek bankruptcy protection. U.S. courts have held that debtors whose income is derived from cannabis or cannabis assets in violation of the CSA cannot seek federal bankruptcy protections.

We cannot guarantee that our systems, protocols and practices will prevent all unauthorized or illegal activities by our clients. Our success depends in part on our clients’ ability to operate consistently with the regulatory and licensing requirements of each state, local and regional jurisdiction in which they operate. We have a dedicated Policy & Compliance Operations team that reviews cannabis license information for operational cannabis retail clients, both on submission and on an ongoing basis, to ensure validity and accuracy. We require all operational cannabis retailer clients, including storefronts and delivery services, to display on their WMH listing a valid, unexpired state-issued license number. For certain of our products or services, we request additional verification and documentation. We cannot ensure that the conduct of our clients, who are third parties, and their actions could expose them to legal sanctions and costs, which would in turn, adversely affect our business and operations.

While we are a technology company, not a cannabis licensee, and as such, are not subject to commercial cannabis regulations that apply to cannabis operators, we cannot guarantee that our systems, protocols and practices will prevent any and all unauthorized or illegal activities by our clients. Our success depends in part on our clients’ ability to operate consistently with the regulatory and licensing requirements of each state, local and regional jurisdiction in which they operate. Despite the procedures and protocols in place for license verification by our Policy & Compliance Operations team, any non-compliance by our clients could put our business at risk, as discussed herein, and could also subject us to potential actions by state regulators, to the extent they could be applied to technology service providers, which could materially adversely affect our business, operations, financial condition, brand and reputation.

Should the federal government legalize cannabis for adult-use and/or medical-use, it is possible that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (the “FDA”) would seek to regulate it under the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act of 1938, as it has with federally legal hemp. Additionally, the FDA may issue rules and regulations including certified good manufacturing practices related to the growth, cultivation, harvesting and processing of adult-use and medical-use cannabis. Clinical trials may be needed to verify efficacy and safety. It is also possible that the FDA would require that facilities where adult-use and medical-use cannabis is grown register with the FDA and comply with certain federally prescribed regulations.

In addition, as a result of the recent lung injuries and deaths associated with e-cigarettes and other vaping products, the FDA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the “CDC”) have warned consumers not to use vaping products containing tetrahydrocannabinol (“THC”). While the FDA and the CDC continue to conduct ongoing investigations, it is currently unknown when and whether the FDA will impose additional rules and regulations on e-cigarettes and other vaping products.

In the event that some or all of these regulations are imposed, we do not know what the impact would be on the adult-use and medical-use cannabis industry, including what costs, requirements and possible prohibitions may be enforced. If our clients are unable to comply with any new rules, regulations or registration as prescribed by the FDA, or are unable to do so in a cost-effective manner, our clients may be unable to continue to operate their respective business in its current form, or at all, which may also result in our clients being unable to continue engaging our technology services.

The hemp and pharmaceutical industry may attempt to compete with or dominate the cannabis industry, and in particular, legal cannabis, through the development and distribution of hemp-derived or synthetic products which emulate the effects and treatment of cannabis. If they are successful, the widespread popularity of such products could change the demand, volume and profitability of the cannabis industry. This could adversely affect the ability of our clients to secure long-term profitability and success.

We believe that Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity from civil and state criminal liability to internet service provider intermediaries in the United States, such as us, for content provided on their platforms that they did not create or develop. We do not create or develop the information that appears on our clients’ listing pages and advertising placements, although our moderation teams may take down a client’s information if it breaches our listing restrictions or admonish consumers who post reviews that violate our community terms of use (which, for example, prohibit profanity and racism). We do author and edit certain original content that appears in other sections of our website, such as WM News, WM Learn and WM Policy. All of these sections are general news and information, and none of these sections are advertisements for, or listing pages of, cannabis businesses, except in limited circumstances related to descriptions of certain cannabis strains. For additional information about Section 230, see the section captioned “Risk Factors—Risks Related to our Business and Industry.” Our clients are subject to licensing and related requirements under applicable laws and regulations, and our own compliance policies, and some of our clients currently and in the future may not be in compliance with all such requirements. Despite our belief that we are protected by Section 230, it is possible that we are not, which would subject us to legal, business and operational risks. In addition, there have been various Congressional efforts to restrict the scope of the protections available to online platforms under Section 230 of the CDA, and our current protections from liability for third-party content in the United States could decrease or change. We could incur significant costs investigating and defending such claims and, if we are found liable, significant damages. We could also face fines or orders restricting or blocking our services in particular geographies as a result of content hosted on our services. For example, recently enacted legislation in Germany may impose significant fines for failure to comply with certain content removal and disclosure obligations.

Certain of the states in which we operate have enacted strict regulations regarding marketing and sales activities on cannabis products, which could affect our cannabis retail clients’ demand for our listing and marketing services. There may be restrictions on sales and marketing activities of cannabis businesses imposed by government regulatory bodies that can hinder the development of our business and operating results because of the restrictions our clients face. If our clients are unable to effectively market our products and compete for market share, or if the costs of compliance with government legislation and regulation cannot be absorbed through increased selling prices for our products for our clients, this could hamper demand for our products and services from licensed cannabis retailers, which could result in a loss of revenue.

Until and unless cannabis is rescheduled to Schedule III, Section 280E of the Code may continue to apply to cannabis and does not allow any deduction or credit for any amount paid or incurred during the taxable year in carrying on business, other than costs of goods sold, if the business (or the activities which comprise the trade or business) consists of trafficking in controlled substances (within the meaning of Schedules I and II of the CSA). The IRS has applied this provision to cannabis operations, prohibiting them from deducting expenses associated with cannabis businesses beyond costs of goods sold and asserting assessments and penalties for additional taxes owed. Section 280E may have a lesser impact on cannabis cultivation and manufacturing operations than on sales operations, which directly affects our clients, who are cannabis retailers. However, Section 280E and related IRS enforcement activity have had a significant impact on the operations of all cannabis companies. While the Section does not directly affect our Company, it lowers our clients’ profitability, and could result in decreased demand

As discussed above, under Section 280E of the Code, no deduction or credit is allowed for any amount paid or incurred during the taxable year in carrying on business, other than costs of goods sold, if the business (or the activities which comprise the trade or business) consists of trafficking in controlled substances (within the meaning of Schedules I and II of the CSA). The IRS has applied this provision to cannabis operations, prohibiting them from deducting expenses associated with cannabis businesses and asserting assessments and penalties for additional taxes owed. While we do believe that Section 280E does not apply to our business, or ancillary service providers that work with state-licensed cannabis businesses, if the IRS interprets the section to apply, it would significantly and materially affect our profitability and financial condition.

Any property owned by participants in the cannabis industry used in the course of conducting such business, or that represents proceeds of such business or is traceable to proceeds of such business, could be subject to seizure by law enforcement and subsequent civil asset forfeiture because of the illegality of the cannabis industry under federal law. Even if the owner of the property or the assets is never charged with a crime, the property in question could still be seized and subject to an administrative proceeding by which, with minimal due process, it could be subject to forfeiture. Forfeiture of assets of our cannabis business clients could adversely affect our revenues if it impedes their profitability or operations and our clients’ ability to continue to subscribe to our services.

Insurance that is otherwise readily available, such as general liability and directors’ and officers’ insurance, is more difficult for us to find and is more expensive or contains significant exclusions because our clients are cannabis industry participants. There are no guarantees that we will be able to find such insurance coverage in the future or that the cost will be affordable to us. If we are forced to go without such insurance coverage, it may prevent us from entering into certain business sectors, may inhibit our growth, and may expose us to additional risk and financial liabilities. If we experience an uninsured loss, it may result in loss of anticipated cash flow and could materially adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition and business.

Courts will not enforce a contract deemed to involve a violation of law or public policy. Because cannabis remains illegal under U.S. federal law, parties to contracts involving the state legal cannabis industry have argued that the agreement was void as federally illegal or against public policy. Some courts have accepted this argument in certain cases, usually against the company trafficking in cannabis. While courts have enforced contracts related to activities by state-legal cannabis companies, and the trend is generally to enforce contracts with state-legal cannabis companies and their vendors, there remains doubt and uncertainty that we will be able to enforce our commercial agreements in court for this reason. We cannot be assured that we will have a remedy for breach of contract, which would have a material adverse effect on our business.

Because cannabis remains illegal under U.S. federal law, non-U.S. citizens employed at or investing in companies doing business in the state legal cannabis industry could face detention, denial of entry or lifetime bans from the United States for their business associations with cannabis businesses. Entry to the United States happens at the sole discretion of the officers on duty of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”), and these officers have wide latitude to ask questions to determine the admissibility of a foreign national. The government of Canada has started warning travelers on its website that previous use of cannabis, or any substance prohibited by U.S. federal laws, could mean denial of entry to the United States. Business or financial involvement in the legal cannabis industry in Canada or in the United States could also be grounds for U.S. border guards to deny entry. On September 21, 2018, CBP released a statement outlining its current position with respect to enforcement of the laws of the United States. It stated that Canada’s legalization of cannabis will not change CBP enforcement of U.S. laws regarding controlled substances and because cannabis continues to be a controlled substance under U.S. federal law, working in or facilitating the proliferation of the legal marijuana industry in U.S. states where it is deemed legal or in Canada may affect admissibility to the United States. CBP updated its stated policy on October 9, 2018 to clarify that a Canadian citizen coming to the United States for reasons unrelated to the cannabis industry will generally be admissible to the United States.

As a result, CBP has affirmed that employees, directors, officers, managers and investors of companies involved in business activities related to cannabis in the United States or Canada (such as us), who are not U.S. citizens, face the risk of being barred from entry into the United States for life. On October 9, 2018, CBP released an additional policy statement indicating that Canadian citizens working in or facilitating the proliferation of the legal cannabis industry in Canada, if travelling to the United States for reasons unrelated to the cannabis industry, will generally be admissible. However, if the traveler is found to be entering into the United States for reasons related to the cannabis industry, he or she may be deemed inadmissible. Ultimately, travel restrictions imposed on our directors, officers, employees and investors could impair our ability to conduct business and to freely explore new strategic relationships.

As of November 29, 2024, our affiliates, executive officers, directors and their respective affiliates as a group beneficially own approximately 22.3% of our outstanding Class A Common Stock and Class V Common Stock. As a result, these stockholders are able to exercise a significant level of control over all matters requiring stockholder approval, including the election of directors, amendment of our Certificate of Incorporation and approval of significant corporate transactions. This control could have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control of us or changes in management and will make the approval of certain transactions difficult or impossible without the support of these stockholders.

We are a “smaller reporting company” under U.S. federal securities laws. For as long as we continue to be a smaller reporting company, we may take advantage of exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not smaller reporting companies, including reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements. Investors may not find our common stock attractive because we may rely on these exemptions. If some investors find our common stock less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our common stock and our stock price may be more volatile.

We do not anticipate declaring any cash dividends to holders of Class A Common Stock in the foreseeable future. Consequently, investors may need to rely on sales of their shares after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investment.

Our Certificate of Incorporation requires, to the fullest extent permitted by law, that derivative actions brought in our name, actions against current or former directors, officers or other employees for breach of fiduciary duty, other similar actions, any other action as to which the Delaware General Corporation Law (the “DGCL”) confers jurisdiction to the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware and any action or proceeding concerning the validity of our Certificate of Incorporation or our Bylaws may be brought only in the Court of Chancery in the State of Delaware (or, if and only if the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware does not have subject matter jurisdiction thereof, any state court located in the State of Delaware or, if and only if all such state courts lack subject matter jurisdiction, the federal district court for the District of Delaware), unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum. This provision would not apply to suits brought to enforce a duty or liability created by the Exchange Act or any other claim for which the federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction. Our Certificate of Incorporation also provides that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the federal district courts of the U.S. shall be the exclusive forum for the resolution of any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act. This provision may limit the ability of our stockholders to bring a claim in a judicial forum that such stockholder finds favorable for disputes with us and our directors, officers or other employees and may have the effect of discouraging lawsuits against our directors, officers and other employees. Furthermore, our stockholders may be subject to increased costs to bring these claims, and the exclusive forum provision could have the effect of discouraging claims or limiting investors’ ability to bring claims in a judicial forum that they find favorable.

In addition, the enforceability of similar exclusive forum provisions in other companies’ certificates of incorporation has been challenged in legal proceedings, and it is possible that, in connection with one or more actions or proceedings described above, a court could rule that this provision in our Certificate of Incorporation is inapplicable or unenforceable. In March 2020, the Delaware Supreme Court issued a decision in Salzburg et al. v. Sciabacucchi, which found that an exclusive forum provision providing for claims under the Securities Act to be brought in federal court is facially valid under Delaware law. We intend to enforce this provision, but we do not know whether courts in other jurisdictions will agree with this decision or enforce it. If a court were to find the exclusive forum provision contained in our Certificate of Incorporation to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could harm our business, prospects, financial condition and operating results.

Sales of a substantial number of shares of our Class A Common Stock in the public market could occur at any time. These sales, or the perception in the market that the holders of a large number of shares intend to sell shares, could reduce the market price of our Class A Common Stock. We are unable to predict the effect that sales may have on the prevailing market price of our Class A Common Stock and the public warrants originally issued in the initial public offering of Silver Spike (the “Public Warrants”).

To the extent the Public Warrants or other exercisable securities are exercised, additional shares of our Class A Common Stock will be issued, which will result in dilution to the holders of our Class A Common Stock and increase the number of shares eligible for resale in the public market. Sales, or the potential sales, of substantial numbers of shares in the public market by the selling security holders could increase the volatility of the market price of our Class A Common Stock or adversely affect the market price of our Class A Common Stock.

We may issue a substantial number of additional shares of Class A Common Stock or preferred stock, including under our equity incentive plan. Any such issuances of additional shares of Class A Common Stock or preferred stock:

The market price of our Class A Common Stock and the Public Warrants have been and may continue to be subject to wide fluctuations in response to numerous factors, many of which are beyond our control, including:

Furthermore, the stock markets frequently experience extreme price and volume fluctuations that affect the market prices of equity securities of many companies. These fluctuations often have been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. These broad market and industry fluctuations, as well as general economic, political and market conditions such as recessions, elections, interest rate changes, or international currency fluctuations, may negatively impact the market price of our Class A Common Stock and the Public Warrants. As a result of such fluctuations, you may not realize any return on your investment in us and may lose some or all of your investment. In the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation or derivative litigation. For example, stockholders have filed or threatened to file derivative lawsuits, purportedly on our behalf, in the past and may do so in the future. Such litigation could result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention from other business concerns.

Our Class A Common Stock is currently listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, which has minimum requirements that a company must meet in order to remain listed. These requirements include maintaining a minimum closing bid price of $1.00 per share, which closing bid price cannot fall below $1.00 per share for a period of more than 30 consecutive business days

On October 9, 2024, we received a letter from the Listing Qualifications Department of The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC (“Nasdaq”) notifying us that, for the last 30 consecutive trading days, the closing bid price for our Class A Common Stock was below $1.00 per share, which is the minimum closing bid price required for continued listing on the Nasdaq Global Select Market pursuant to Nasdaq Listing Rule 5450(a)(1) (the “Notice”). In accordance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5810(c)(3)(A), we are provided a compliance period of 180 calendar days from the date of the Notice, or until April 7, 2025, to regain compliance with the minimum closing bid price requirement. If at any time during the 180 calendar day grace period, the closing bid price of our Class A Common Stock is at least $1.00 per share for a minimum of ten consecutive business days (unless the Nasdaq staff exercises its discretion to extend this ten business day period pursuant to Nasdaq Listing Rule 5810(c)(3)(H)), Nasdaq will provide us written confirmation of compliance, and the matter will be closed.

If we do not regain compliance during the compliance period, we may be provided a second 180 calendar day period to regain compliance if we apply to transfer the listing of our Class A Common Stock to the Nasdaq Capital Market. To qualify, we must meet the continued listing requirement for market value of publicly-held shares and all other initial listing standards for the Nasdaq Capital Market (with the exception of the minimum bid price requirement), based on our most recent public filings and market information and notify Nasdaq of our intent to cure the deficiency by effecting a reverse stock split, if necessary. If we do not regain compliance within the allotted compliance periods, including any extensions that may be granted by Nasdaq, our Class A Common Stock will be subject to delisting. We would have the right to appeal a determination to delist our Class A Common Stock, and our Class A Common Stock would remain listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market until the completion of the appeal process.

There can be no assurance that we will regain compliance with the minimum bid price requirement during the 180-day compliance period, secure a second 180-day period to regain compliance, or maintain compliance with the other Nasdaq listing requirements.

Additionally, if a reverse stock split is implemented, there can be no assurance that the market price per new share of our Class A Common Stock following the reverse stock split will remain unchanged or will increase in proportion to the reduction in the number of old shares of our Class A Common Stock outstanding before the reverse stock split. The liquidity of the shares of our Class A Common Stock may be affected adversely by any reverse stock split given the reduced number of shares of our Class A Common Stock that will be outstanding following such reverse stock split. Furthermore, following any reverse stock split, the resulting market price of our Class A Common Stock may not attract new investors and may not satisfy the investing requirements of those investors.

In the event that our Class A Common Stock is delisted from Nasdaq as a result of our failure to regain compliance with the minimum closing bid price requirement, as a result of Nasdaq not granting us an extension or the panel not

Additionally, if our Class A Common Stock is delisted from Nasdaq, the liquidity of our Class A Common Stock would be adversely affected, the market price of our Class A Common Stock could decrease, our ability to obtain sufficient additional capital to fund our operations and transactions in our Class A Common Stock could lose federal preemption of state securities laws. Furthermore, there could also be a further reduction in our coverage by securities analysts and the news media and broker-dealers may be deterred from making a market in or otherwise seeking or generating interest in our Class A Common Stock, which could cause the price of our Class A Common Stock to decline further. Moreover, delisting may also negatively affect our clients’, customers’ and employees’ confidence in us and employee morale.

Our performance is subject to global economic conditions and economic conditions in one or more of our key markets, which impact spending by our clients and consumers. A majority of our clients are small and medium-sized businesses that operate one or two retail locations, and their access to capital, liquidity and other financial resources is constrained due to the regulatory restrictions applicable to cannabis businesses. As a result, these clients have been and may be further disproportionately affected by economic downturns.

Clients may choose to allocate their spending to items other than our platform, especially during economic downturns. Economic conditions may also adversely impact retail sales of cannabis. Declining retail sales of cannabis could result in our clients going out of business or deciding to stop using our platform to conserve financial resources. Negative economic conditions may also affect third parties with whom we have entered into relationships and upon whom we depend in order to grow our business.

Furthermore, economic downturns could also lead to limitations on our ability to obtain debt or equity financing on favorable terms or at all, reduced liquidity, decreases in the market price of our securities, decreases in the fair market value of our financial or other assets, and write-downs of and increased credit and collectability risk on our trade receivables, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results or financial condition.

Our operations depend, in part, on our ability to protect our facilities against damage or interruption from natural disasters, power or telecommunications failures, criminal acts and similar events. Despite precautions taken at our facilities, the occurrence of a natural disaster, an act of terrorism, vandalism or sabotage, spikes in usage volume or other unanticipated problems at a facility could result in lengthy interruptions in the availability of our platform. Even with current and planned disaster recovery arrangements, our business could be harmed. Also, in the event of damage or interruption, our insurance policies may not adequately compensate us for any losses that we may incur. These factors in turn could further reduce revenue, subject us to liability and lead to decreased usage of our platform and decrease sales of our advertising placements, any of which could harm our business.

As a public company, we incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company. As a public company, we are subject to the requirements of the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, and the rules and regulations promulgated and to be promulgated thereunder, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (the “PCAOB”), as well as rules adopted, and to be adopted, by the SEC and the Nasdaq Stock Market. Our management and other personnel devote a substantial amount of time to these compliance initiatives. Moreover, we expect these rules and regulations to substantially increase our legal and financial compliance costs and to make some activities more time-consuming and costly. The increased costs will increase our net loss or reduce our net income. Compliance with public company requirements will increase costs and

We are exposed to the risk that our employees and independent contractors may engage in misconduct or other illegal activity. Misconduct by these parties could include intentional, reckless or negligent conduct or other activities that violate laws and regulations, including production standards, U.S. federal and state fraud, abuse, data privacy and security laws, other similar non-U.S. laws or laws that require the true, complete and accurate reporting of financial information or data. It is not always possible to identify and deter misconduct by employees and other third parties, and the precautions we take to detect and prevent this activity may not be effective in controlling unknown or unmanaged risks or losses or in protecting us from governmental investigations or other actions or lawsuits stemming from a failure to be in compliance with such laws or regulations. In addition, we are subject to the risk that a person or government could allege such fraud or other misconduct, even if none occurred. If any such actions are instituted against us, and we are not successful in defending ourselves or asserting our rights, those actions could have a significant impact on our business, prospects, financial condition and operating results, including, without limitation, the imposition of significant civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, monetary fines, disgorgement, integrity oversight and reporting obligations to resolve allegations of non-compliance, imprisonment, other sanctions, contractual damages, reputational harm, diminished profits and future earnings and curtailment of our operations, any of which could adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and operating results.

The trading market for our Class A Common Stock will be influenced by the research and reports that industry or securities analysts may publish about us, our business, our market or our competitors. If any of the analysts who may cover us change their recommendation regarding our stock adversely, or provide more favorable relative recommendations about our competitors, the price of our Class A Common Stock would likely decline. If any analyst who may cover us were to cease their coverage or fail to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline.

We have agreed to indemnify our officers and directors to the fullest extent permitted by law. Accordingly, any indemnification provided will be able to be satisfied by us only if we have sufficient funds. Our obligation to indemnify our officers and directors may discourage shareholders from bringing a lawsuit against our officers or directors for breach of their fiduciary duty. These provisions also may have the effect of reducing the likelihood of derivative litigation against our officers and directors, even though such an action, if successful, might otherwise benefit us and our shareholders. Furthermore, a shareholder’s investment may be adversely affected to the extent we pay the costs of settlement and damage awards against our officers and directors pursuant to these indemnification provisions.

All of the Class A Common Stock offered by the Selling Securityholders pursuant to this prospectus will be sold by the Selling Securityholders for their respective accounts. We will not receive any of the proceeds from these sales.

Our Class A Common Stock and Public Warrants are currently listed on Nasdaq under the symbols “MAPS” and “MAPSW”, respectively. As of November 29, 2024, there were 97,730,177 shares of Class A Common Stock issued and outstanding and 55,486,361 shares of our Class V common stock (the “Class V Common Stock”) issued and outstanding. No market exists for the Class V Common Stock.

As of November 29, 2024, there were 112 holders of record of our Class A Common Stock, 12 holders of record of our Class V Common Stock and 2 holders of record of our Public Warrants.

We have not paid any cash dividends on the Class A Common Stock or Class V Common Stock to date. The payment of cash dividends in the future will be dependent upon our revenues and earnings, if any, capital requirements, general financial condition, contractual restrictions and other factors that our board of directors may deem relevant and will be within the discretion of our board of directors at such time. In addition, our ability to pay dividends may be limited by covenants of any existing and future outstanding indebtedness we or our subsidiaries incur. We do not anticipate declaring any cash dividends to holders of Common Stock in the foreseeable future.

For further information about how we calculate EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA as well as limitations of its use and a reconciliation of EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA to net income (loss), see “Net Income (Loss) to EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA” under the heading Non-GAAP Financial Measures below.

Founded in 2008, and headquartered in Irvine, California, WM Technology, Inc. operates a leading online cannabis marketplace for consumers together with a comprehensive set of eCommerce and compliance software solutions for cannabis businesses, which are sold to both storefront locations and delivery operators (“retailers”) and brands in the legalized cannabis markets in states and territories of the United States. Our comprehensive business-to-consumer and business-to-business suite of products afford cannabis retailers and brands of all sizes integrated tools to compliantly run their businesses and to reach, convert, and retain consumers.

Our business primarily consists of our commerce-driven marketplace (“Weedmaps”), and our fully integrated suite of end-to-end Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) solutions software offering (“Weedmaps for Business”). The Weedmaps marketplace is a premier destination for cannabis consumers to discover and browse information regarding cannabis and cannabis products with 5,100 average monthly paying clients during the three months ended September 30, 2024 on the supply-side of our marketplace. These paying clients include retailers, brands and other client types (such as doctors). Further, these clients, who can choose to purchase multiple listings solutions for each business, had purchased approximately 8,300 listing pages as of September 30, 2024.

We sell our Weedmaps for Business suite in the United States and have a limited number of non-monetized listings in several other countries including Austria, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. We operate in the United States, Canada and other foreign jurisdictions where medical and/or adult cannabis use is legal under state or national law. As of September 30, 2024, we actively operated in over 35 U.S. states and territories that have adult-use and/or medical-use regulations in place. Substantially all of our revenue was generated in the United States during the periods presented. We define actively operated markets as those U.S. states or territories with greater than $1,000 monthly revenue.

As we continue to expand the presence and increase the number of consumers on the Weedmaps marketplace and broaden our offerings, we generate more value for our business clients. As we continue to expand the presence and increase the number of cannabis businesses listed on weedmaps.com, we become a more compelling marketplace for consumers. To capitalize on the growth opportunities of our two-sided marketplace and solutions, we plan to continue making investments in raising brand awareness, increasing penetration within existing markets and expanding to new markets, as well as continuing to develop and monetize new solutions to extend the functionality of our platform. These investments serve to deepen the consumer experience with our platform and continue to provide a high level of support to our business clients.

We monitor the following key financial and operational metrics to evaluate our business, measure our performance, identify trends affecting our business, formulate business plans, and make strategic decisions.

The following tables summarize our financial performance for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2024 compared with the same period in 2023 and for the year ended December 31, 2023 compared to our financial performance for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021. For a detailed discussion of our results of operations, see “Results of Operations for the Three and Nine Months Ended September 30, 2024 and 2023” and “Results of Operations for the Years Ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021” below.

Our financial statements, including net income (loss), are prepared in accordance with GAAP. For more information regarding the components within our net income (loss), see “Components of Our Results of Operations” below.

Net income for the three months ended September 30, 2024 was $5.3 million compared with a net loss for the three months ended September 30, 2023 of $2.5 million. The change in net income was primarily due to a decrease in total costs and expenses of $10.9 million, change in fair value of warrant liability of $1.0 million, and change in tax receivable agreement (“TRA”) liability of $0.5 million, partially offset by a decrease in revenue of $0.1 million and a decrease in other income (expense) of $3.5 million.

Net income for the nine months ended September 30, 2024 was $8.5 million compared with a net loss for the nine months ended September 30, 2023 of $4.5 million. The increase in net income was primarily due to a decrease in total costs and expenses of $20.8 million, and change in fair value of warrant liability of $1.0 million, partially offset by a decrease in revenue of $4.7 million, change in tax receivable agreement (“TRA”) liability of $0.8 million and a decrease in other income (expense) of $3.2 million.

Net loss for the year ended December 31, 2023 was $15.7 million compared to a net loss of $82.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2022. The decrease in net loss of $66.9 million was primarily due to a decrease in revenue of $27.5 million, a decrease in comparatively favorable change in fair value of warrant liability of $23.9 million, a decrease in income from the change in tax receivables agreement liability of $143.6 million resulting from the remeasurement of the TRA liability, a decrease in total costs and expenses of $78.7 million, a decrease in provision from income taxes of $179.0 million resulting from the full valuation recorded against our deferred tax assets during the year ended December 31, 2022 and an increase in other expense of $4.2 million.

To provide investors with additional information regarding our financial results, we have disclosed EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA, both of which are non-GAAP financial measures that we calculate as net income (loss) before interest, taxes and depreciation and amortization expense in the case of EBITDA and further adjusted to exclude stock-based compensation, change in fair value of warrant liability, transaction related bonus, legal settlements and other legal costs, discharge of holdback obligation related to prior acquisition, reduction in force, asset impairment charges, transaction costs, change in TRA liability and other non-cash, unusual and/or infrequent costs in the case of Adjusted EBITDA. Below we have provided a reconciliation of net income (loss) (the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure) to EBITDA; and from EBITDA to Adjusted EBITDA.

We present EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA because these metrics are a key measure used by our management to evaluate our operating performance, generate future operating plans and make strategic decisions regarding the

Each of EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA has limitations as an analytical tool, and you should not consider any of these non-GAAP financial measures in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under GAAP. Some of these limitations are as follows:

Because of these limitations, you should consider EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA alongside other financial performance measures, including net income (loss) and our other GAAP results.

Average monthly net revenues per paying client measures how much clients, for the period of measurement, are willing to pay us for our subscription and additional offerings and the efficiency of the bid-auction process for our featured listings placements. We calculate this metric by dividing the average monthly net revenues for any particular period by the average monthly number of paying clients in the same respective period. The increase in our average monthly net revenues per paying client for both the three and nine months ended September 30, 2024 was due to sunset of certain products, which had lower average monthly spending clients, in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Average monthly revenue per paying client was $2,891 for the year ended December 31, 2023 compared with $3,291 for the year ended December 31, 2022. The decline in our average monthly net revenue per paying client for the year ended December 31, 2023, as compared to the prior year, was due to spend declines in established markets. We expected these pressures given the continued liquidity challenges that clients are facing.

We define average monthly paying clients as the monthly average of clients billed each month over a particular period (and for which services were provided). Our paying clients include both individual cannabis businesses as well as retail websites or businesses within a larger organization that have independent relationships with us, many of whom are owned by holding companies where decision-making is decentralized such that purchasing decisions are made, and relationships with us are located, at a lower organizational level. In addition, any client may choose to purchase multiple listing solutions for each of their retail websites or businesses.

Average monthly net revenues per paying clients for the three months ended September 30, 2024 decreased 6% to 5,100 average monthly paying clients from 5,414 average monthly paying clients in the same period in 2023. Average monthly paying clients for the nine months ended September 30, 2024 decreased 10% to 5,027 average monthly paying clients from 5,555 average monthly paying clients in the same period in 2023.

Average monthly paying clients for the year ended December 31, 2023 decreased by approximately 1% to 5,419 average monthly paying clients from 5,457 average monthly paying clients in the same period in 2022. The decrease in average monthly paying clients in 2023 as compared to the same period in 2022 was primarily due to elevated churn as a result of the cannabis industry facing price deflation in 2023.

We have historically grown through and intend to focus on continuing to grow through the expansion of our two-sided marketplace, which occurs through growth of the number and type of businesses and consumers that we

Our revenue grows primarily through acquiring and retaining paying clients and increasing the revenue per paying client over time. We have a history of attracting new paying clients and increasing their annual spend with us over time, primarily due to the value they receive once they are onboarded and able to take advantage of the benefits of participating in our two-sided marketplace and leveraging our software solutions.

Prices of certain commodity products, including gas prices, are historically volatile and subject to fluctuations arising from changes in domestic and international supply and demand, labor costs, competition, market speculation, government regulations, trade restrictions and tariffs, inflation, the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the recent state of war between Israel and Hamas and the related risk of a larger regional conflict. Increasing prices in the component materials for the goods or services of our clients may impact their ability to maintain or increase their spend with us and their ability to pay their invoices on time. Rapid and significant changes in commodity prices may negatively affect our revenue if our clients are unable to mitigate inflationary increases through various customer pricing actions and cost reduction initiatives. This could also negatively impact our net dollar retention and our collections on accounts receivable.

We believe that we will have significant opportunities for greater growth as more jurisdictions legalize cannabis for medical and/or adult-use and the regulatory environment continues to develop. As of September 30, 2024, thirty-nine states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana have legalized some form of cannabis use for certain medical purposes. Twenty-four of those states, the District of Columbia, Guam and Northern Mariana have legalized cannabis for adults for non-medical purposes as well (sometimes referred to as adult or recreational use). Eight additional states have legalized forms of low-potency cannabis, for select medical conditions. Only three states continue to prohibit cannabis entirely. We intend to explore new expansion opportunities as additional jurisdictions legalize cannabis for medical or adult use and leverage our business model informed by our 15-year operating history to enter new markets.

We also have a significant opportunity to monetize transactions originating from users engaging with a retailer on the Weedmaps marketplace or tracked via one of our Weedmaps for Business solutions. Given U.S. federal prohibitions on plant-touching businesses and our current policy not to participate in the chain of commerce associated with the sale of cannabis products, we do not charge take-rates or payment fees for transactions originating from users who engage with a retailer on the Weedmaps platform or tracked via one of our Weedmaps for Business solutions. A change in U.S. federal regulations could result in our ability to engage in such monetization efforts without adverse consequences to our business. A change in U.S. federal regulations could also increase access to capital and remove limitations of Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, thus allowing deduction or credit for certain expenses of cannabis business to increase our cash flow and liquidity, as well as those of many industry participants.

Our long-term growth depends on our ability to successfully capitalize on new and existing cannabis markets. Each market must reach a critical mass of both cannabis businesses and consumers for listing subscriptions, advertising placements and other solutions to have meaningful appeal to potential clients. As regulated markets mature and as we incur expenses to attract paying clients and convert non-paying clients to paying clients, we may generate losses in new markets for an extended period.

Furthermore, we compete with cannabis-focused and general two-sided marketplaces, internet search engines and various other newspaper, television and media companies and other software providers. We expect competition to intensify in the future as the regulatory regime for cannabis becomes more settled and the legal market for cannabis becomes more accepted, which may encourage new participants to enter the market, including established companies with substantially greater financial, technical and other resources than existing market participants. Our current and future competitors may also enjoy other competitive advantages, such as greater name recognition, more offerings and larger marketing budgets.

We believe that maintaining and enhancing our brand identity and our reputation is critical to maintaining and growing our relationships with clients and consumers and to our ability to attract new clients and consumers. Historically, a substantial majority of our marketing spending was on out-of-home advertising on billboards, buses and other non-digital outlets. Starting in 2019, consistent with the overall shift in perceptions regarding cannabis, a number of demand-side digital advertising platforms allowed us to advertise online. We also invested in growing our internal digital performance advertising team. We believe there is an opportunity to improve market efficiency through digital channels and expect to shift our marketing spending accordingly. Over the longer term, we expect to shift and accelerate our marketing spend to additional online and traditional channels, such as broadcast television or radio, as they become available to us. Further, we have begun reinvesting in our own on-the-ground and field marketing presence and are increasing the types and cadence of client events. These events and in-store activations allow Weedmaps to engage with consumers at the point of purchase and also afford Weedmaps with the opportunity to engage directly with our clients, understand their needs and challenges and foster goodwill.

Negative publicity, whether or not justified, relating to events or activities attributed to us, our employees, clients or others associated with any of these parties, may tarnish our reputation and reduce the value of our brand. Given our high visibility and relatively long operating history compared to many of our competitors, we may be more susceptible to the risk of negative publicity. Damage to our reputation and loss of brand equity may reduce demand for our platform and have an adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition. Moreover, any attempts to rebuild our reputation and restore the value of our brand may be costly and time consuming, and such efforts may not ultimately be successful.

We also believe that the importance of our brand recognition and reputation will continue to increase as competition in our market continues to develop. If our brand promotion activities are not successful, our operating results and growth may be adversely impacted.

We intend to continue to make focused organic and inorganic investments to grow our revenue and scale operations to support that growth.

Given our long operating history in the United States and the strength of our network, often businesses will initially list on our platform without targeted sales or marketing efforts by us. However, we plan to accelerate our investments in marketing to maintain and increase our brand awareness through both online and offline channels. We also plan to invest in expanding our business listings thereby enhancing our client and consumer experience, and improving the depth and quality of information provided on our platform. We also intend to continue to invest in several areas to continue enhancing the functionality of our Weedmaps for Business offering. We expect significant near-term investments to enhance our data assets and evolve our current listings and software offerings to our brand clients, among other areas. We anticipate undertaking such investments in order to be positioned to capitalize on the rapidly expanding cannabis market.

As operating expenses and capital expenditures fluctuate over time, we may accordingly experience short-term, negative impacts to our operating results and cash flows.

Our revenues are derived primarily from monthly subscriptions to Weedmaps for Business, featured and deal listings, other ad solutions and WM Dispatch. Our Weedmaps for Business subscriptions generally have one-month terms that automatically renew unless notice of cancellation is provided in advance. Featured and deal listings and other ad solutions are offered as add-on products to the Weedmaps for Business subscriptions. Featured and deal listings provide customers with premium placement ad solutions and discount and promotion pricing tools. Other ad solutions include banner ads and promotion tiles on the Company’s marketplace ad as well as other advertising products on and off the Weedmaps marketplace. We have a fixed inventory of featured listing and display advertising in each market, and price is generally determined through a competitive auction process that reflects local market demand. Revenues for these arrangements are recognized over-time, generally during a month-to-month subscription period as the products are provided. We rarely need to allocate the transaction price to separate performance obligations. In the rare case that allocation of the transaction price is needed, we recognize revenue in proportion to the standalone selling prices of the underlying services at contract inception.

Our cost structure has two components: cost of revenues and operating expenses. Our operating expenses include costs related to selling and marketing, product development, general and administrative functions and depreciation and amortization. Certain of our costs and expenses, including those associated with the operation of our technical infrastructure as well as components of our operating expenses, are generally less variable in nature and may not correlate to changes in revenue.

Cost of revenues excludes depreciation and amortization expense and primarily consists of web hosting, internet service and credit card processing costs. Cost of revenues is primarily driven by fluctuations in revenue leading to increases or decreases in credit card processing and web hosting cost. We expect our cost of revenue to continue to increase on an absolute basis and remain relatively flat as a percentage of revenue as we scale our business and inventory costs related to multi-media offerings.

Selling and marketing expenses consist of salaries and benefits, stock-based compensation expense, travel expense and incentive compensation for our sales and marketing employees. In addition, sales and marketing expenses include customer acquisition marketing, events cost and branding and advertising costs. Over the longer term, we expect sales and marketing expense to increase in a manner consistent with revenue growth, however, we may experience fluctuations in some periods as we enter and develop new markets or have large one-time marketing projects.

Product development costs consist of salaries and benefits and stock-based compensation expense for employees, including engineering and technical teams who are responsible for building new products, as well as maintaining and improving existing products. Product development costs that do not meet the criteria for capitalization are expensed as incurred. Amortization expense related to capitalized software development cost is included in depreciation, amortization and asset impairment expense in the consolidated statements of operations. We believe that continued investment in our platform is important for our growth and expect our product development expenses will increase in a manner consistent with revenue growth as our operations grow.

General and administrative expenses consist primarily of payroll, benefit costs and stock-based compensation expense for our employees involved in general corporate functions including our senior leadership team as well as costs associated with the use by these functions of software and facilities and equipment, such as rent, insurance and other occupancy expenses. General and administrative expenses also include provision for credit losses and professional and outside services related to legal and other consulting services. General and administrative expenses are primarily driven by headcount required to support our business and meet our obligations as a public company. We expect general and administrative expenses to decline as percentage of revenue as we scale our business and leverage investments in these areas.

Depreciation and amortization expenses primarily consist of depreciation on computer equipment, furniture and fixtures, leasehold improvements, capitalized software development costs and amortization of intangibles. We expect depreciation and amortization expenses to increase on an absolute basis for the foreseeable future as we scale our business.

Other income (expense), net consists primarily of change in fair value of warrant liability, TRA liability remeasurement, interest income and other tax related expenses.

We account for income taxes pursuant to the asset and liability method which requires the recognition of deferred income tax assets and liabilities related to the expected future tax consequences arising from temporary differences between the carrying amounts and tax bases of assets and liabilities based on enacted statutory tax rates applicable

The following tables set forth our results of operations for the periods presented and express the relationship of certain line items as a percentage of net sales for those periods. The period-to-period comparison of financial results is not necessarily indicative of future results.

Net revenues decreased by $0.1 million or less than 0.1% for the three months ended September 30, 2024 compared to the same period in 2023. The decrease was primarily due to a decrease in net revenues from our Featured Listing and WM Deal products of $2.7 million driven by our clients continuing to face constrained marketing budgets, the ongoing consolidation of our industry, partially offset by an increase in net revenues from our Weedmaps for Business and other SaaS solutions of $2.7 million driven by favorable pricing changes partially offset by a loss in revenue from products that were sunset in December 2023.

For the three months ended September 30, 2024, Featured Listing and WM Deal products, Weedmaps for Business and other ad solutions represented approximately 63%, 29% and 8% of our total net revenues, respectively.

The decrease in cost of revenues was primarily related to a decrease of $0.6 million for cost of revenues associated with multi-channel marketing and cloud communication platforms, primarily due to the sunset in December 2023 of WM CRM, WM Screens and WM AdSuite and a decrease of $0.2 million in server costs.

The decrease in sales and marketing expenses was primarily related to decreases in personnel-related costs of $0.4 million, decrease in advertising expense of $1.2 million and a decrease in event expense of $0.3 million. The decrease in personnel related costs was primarily driven by lower headcount resulting in decreases in salaries and wages of $0.4 million, stock-based compensation expense of $0.2 million and payroll tax expense of $0.1 million, partially offset by increases in bonus and commission expense of $0.3 million.

The increase in product development expenses was primarily due to an increase in contracted outside services expense of $0.6 million and an increase in personnel-related costs of $1.1 million. The increase in personnel-related costs was primarily due to increases in salaries and bonus expense of $1.1 million driven by lower capitalized software development costs compared to the same period in 2023, resulting in an increase in net salaries and wages expense.

The decrease in general and administrative expenses was primarily due to decreases in salaries and wages of $0.2 million, stock-based compensation expense of $0.5 million, employee benefits of $0.2 million, rent expense of $0.5 million due to gain from lease modification, professional legal and audit services of $0.4 million, facilities expense of $0.8 million, software expense of $0.3 million, and insurance expense of $0.3 million, partially offset by increases in bonus expense of $0.5 million, outside service expense of $0.2 million, office expense of $0.5 million and provision for credit losses of $0.1 million, payroll tax of $0.1 million and severance of $0.1 million.

The increase in depreciation and amortization expense was primarily due to an increase in capitalized software amortization, partially offset by a decrease in amortization of intangible assets.

The decrease in asset impairment charges was primarily due to $8.3 million in impairment of intangible assets and property and equipment associated with the sunset of certain product offerings in December 2023.

The decrease in other income (expense), net was primarily due to favorable changes in fair value of warrant liability of $1.0 million, a decrease in TRA liability of $0.5 million and a decrease in other income of $3.5 million, primarily due to a non-cash gain recorded in September 2023 of $3.7 million associated with the discharge of a holdback obligation related to a prior acquisition.

For the three months ended September 30, 2024, we recorded $21 thousand in income tax provisions due to the impact of the full valuation allowance on its net deferred assets. See Note 2, “Summary of Significant Accounting Policies,” to our unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus for further information.

Net revenues decreased by $4.7 million, or 3%, for the nine months ended September 30, 2024 compared to the same period in 2023. The decrease was primarily due to a decrease in net revenues from our Featured Listing and WM Deal products of $11.0 million driven by our clients continuing to face constrained marketing budgets, the ongoing consolidation of our industry, partially offset by an increase in net revenues from our Weedmaps for Business and other SaaS solutions of $6.4 million driven by favorable pricing changes partially offset by a loss in revenue from products that were sunset in December 2023.

For nine months ended September 30, 2024, Featured Listing and WM Deal products, Weedmaps for Business and other ad solutions represented approximately 63%, 29% and 8% of our total net revenues, respectively.

The decrease in cost of revenue was primarily related to a decrease of $2.3 million for cost of revenues associated with multi-channel marketing and cloud communication platforms primarily due to the sunset in December 2023 of WM CRM, WM Screens and WM AdSuite and a decrease of $0.7 million in server costs.

The decrease in sales and marketing expenses was primarily due to a decrease in personnel-related costs of $5.6 million, a decrease in outside services of $0.4 million and a decrease in advertising expense of $0.7 million, partially offset by an increase in event expense of $0.2 million and an increase in print and products expense of $0.7 million. The decrease in personnel-related costs was primarily driven by lower headcount resulting in decreases in salaries and wages of $2.5 million, bonus expense of $1.8 million, payroll taxes of $0.3 million and $1.0 million in stock-based compensation expense.

The increase in product development expenses was due to an increase in outside increase in travel and entertainment expense of $0.1 million partially offset by a decrease in personnel-related costs of $1.4 million. The decrease in personnel-related costs was primarily due to decreases in salaries and wages of $1.0 million, driven by a decline in headcount, partially offset by lower capitalized so the same period in 2023 and stock-based compensation expense of $0.4 million.

The decrease in general and administrative expenses was primarily due to a decrease in personnel-related costs of $3.0 million, a decrease in facilities expense of $1.7 million, a decrease in insurance expense of $1.4 million, a decrease in rent expense of $0.8 million, a decrease in software expense of $0.9 million and a decrease in provision for credit losses of $0.1 million, partially offset by $1.5 million charge recorded in the second quarter of 2024 related to potential settlement of an SEC matter, increases in professional legal and audit services of $0.5 million, an increase in office expense of $0.5 million, an increase in promotional expense of $0.2 million and an increase in outside service expense of $0.9 million.

The decrease in personnel-related costs was primarily driven by lower headcount resulting into a decrease in salaries and wages of $1.2 million, a decrease in severance costs of $0.5 million, a decrease in stock-based compensation expense of $1.8 million, a decrease in employee benefit expense of $0.4 million, partially offset by an increase in

The decrease in depreciation and amortization expense was primarily due to an increase in capitalized software amortization, partially offset by a decrease in amortization of intangible assets.

The decrease in asset impairment charges was primarily due to $8.3 million in impairment of intangible assets and property and equipment associated with the sunset of certain product offerings in December 2023.

The decrease in other income (expense) net was primarily due to favorable changes in fair value of warrant liability of $1.0 million, partially offset by an increase in TRA liability of $0.8 million and a decrease in other expense of $3.2 million, primarily due to a non-cash gain recorded in September 2023 of $3.7 million associated with the discharge of a holdback obligation related to a prior acquisition.

For the nine months ended September 30, 2024, we recorded $72 thousand in income tax provisions due to the impact of the full valuation allowance on its net deferred assets. See Note 2, “Summary of Significant Accounting Policies,” to our unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus for further information.

The cannabis industry has certain industry holidays that in recent years have resulted in increased purchases by cannabis consumers. Such “holidays” include, but are not limited to 420, July 10th and the Wednesday before Thanksgiving (“Green Wednesday”). Likewise, our clients will typically increase their spend heading into these events. We also typically invest in marketing spend around these holidays which can create some seasonality in our sales and market expenses from quarter to quarter. While seasonality has not had a significant impact on our results in the past, our clients may experience seasonality in their businesses which in turn can impact the revenue generated from them. Our business may become more seasonal in the future and historical patterns in our business may not be a reliable indicator of future performance.

As of September 30, 2024 and December 31, 2023, we had cash of $45.0 million and $34.4 million, respectively. Our funds are being used for funding our current operations and potential strategic acquisitions in the future. We also intend to increase our capital expenditures to support the organic growth in our business and operations. We expect to fund our liquidity requirements from cash and working capital on hand at September 30, 2024, as well as from cash provided by operating activities. We believe that our existing cash and cash generated from operations will be sufficient to meet our anticipated cash needs for at least the next 12 months. However, our liquidity assumptions may prove to be incorrect, and we could exhaust our available financial resources sooner than we currently expect. We may seek to raise additional funds at any time through equity, equity-linked or debt financing arrangements. Our future capital requirements and the adequacy of available funds will depend on many factors. We may not be able to secure additional financing to meet our operating requirements on acceptable terms, or at all.

Cash from operating activities consists primarily of net income (loss) adjusted for certain non-cash items, including depreciation and amortization, change in fair value of warrant liability, change in TRA liability, amortization of right-of-use lease assets, stock-based compensation, asset impairment charges, gain on lease termination, provision (recovery) for credit losses, and the effect of changes in working capital.

Net cash provided by operating activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2024 was $27.3 million, which resulted from a net income of $8.5 million, together with net cash outflows of $2.2 million from changes in operating assets and liabilities, and non-cash items of $21.0 million, consisting of depreciation and amortization of $9.6 million, change in TRA liability of $1.5 million, amortization of right-of-use lease assets of $3.3 million, stock-based compensation of $7.2 million, partially offset by change in fair value of warrant liability of $0.2 million, gain on lease termination of $0.1 million and provision (recovery) for credit losses of $0.3 million. Net cash outflows from changes in operating assets and liabilities was primarily due to an increase in prepaid expenses and other current assets of $0.4 million, a decrease in accounts payable and accrued expenses of $1.2 million, a decrease in deferred revenue of $0.2 million and a decrease in operating lease liabilities of $5.0 million, partially offset by a decrease in accounts receivable of $3.5 million and a decrease in other assets of $1.0 million. The changes in operating assets and liabilities are mostly due to fluctuations in timing of cash receipts and payments.

Net cash provided by operating activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2023 was $12.4 million, which resulted from net loss of $4.5 million, together with net cash outflows of $12.5 million from changes in operating assets and liabilities, and non-cash items of $29.4 million, consisting of depreciation and amortization of $9.4 million, fair value of warrant liability of $0.8 million, change in TRA liability of $0.7 million, amortization of right-of-use lease assets of $3.7 million, asset impairment charges of $8.4 million and stock-based compensation of $10.4 million, partially offset by gain from the discharge of a holdback obligation related to a prior acquisition of $3.7 million and provision (recovery) for credit losses of $0.2 million. Net cash outflows from changes in operating assets and liabilities were primarily due to a decrease in accounts payables and accrued expenses of $15.4 million, a decrease in operating lease liabilities of $4.7 million and a decrease in deferred revenue of $0.2 million, partially offset by a

Net cash used in investing activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2024 was $9.5 million, which resulted from $9.5 million cash paid for capital expenditures which includes purchases of property and equipment, including certain capitalized software development cost.

Net cash used in investing activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2023 was $8.9 million, which resulted from $8.9 million cash paid for capital expenditures which includes purchases of property and equipment, including certain capitalized software development cost.

Net cash outflows from financing activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2024 was $7.1 million, which primarily consists of $7.3 million in distributions payments to members of WMH LLC, $0.1 million in TRA payments and $0.3 million in proceeds from collection of related party note receivable.

Net cash outflows from financing activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2023 was $4.4 million, which primarily consists of $1.5 million in repayments of insurance premium financing and $3.2 million in distributions payments to members of WMH LLC and $0.3 million in proceeds from collection of related party note receivable.

The following table sets forth our results of operations for the periods presented and expresses the relationship of certain line items as a percentage of net revenues for those periods. The period-to-period comparison of financial results is not necessarily indicative of future results.

Net revenues decreased by $27.5 million, or 13%, for the year ended December 31, 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. The decrease was primarily driven by a decrease in average monthly net revenue per paying client primarily as a result of a decrease in revenue from our Featured Listings and WM Deal products of $23.1 million, Weedmaps for Business of $3.9 million and other WM Ad solutions of $0.5 million.

For the year ended December 31, 2023, featured and deal listings, Weedmaps for Business and other ad solutions represented 67%, 25% and 8% of our total net revenues, respectively.

During the year ended December 31, 2022, we approved plans to reduce our workforce as part of certain cost-reduction initiatives intended to reduce operating expenses and sharpen our focus on key growth priorities. The decreases in our sales and marketing expenses, product development expenses and general and administrative expenses are primarily driven by the reduction in employee headcount. As of December 31, 2023, we had 440 full-time employees and 19 temporary employees, including 196 in engineering, product and design, 181 in sales and marketing and 82 in general and administrative. As of December 31, 2022, we had 580 full-time employees and 3 temporary employees, including 224 in engineering, product and design, 245 in sales and marketing and 114 in general and administrative. Of these employees, 573 are located in the United States and 10 are located in Canada. The following table shows our total costs and expenses:

The decrease in cost of revenues in 2023 compared with 2022 was primarily related to a decrease of $3.7 million in cost of revenues associated with outside services expense for WM CRM, WM Screens and WM AdSuite which were sunset in December 2023, partially offset by an increase of $0.9 million for server costs.

The decrease in sales and marketing expenses was primarily related to a decrease in personnel-related costs of $27.0 million, a decrease in outside service of $5.7 million, a decrease in web advertising expense of $2.3 million, a decrease in travel expense of $0.4 million, a decrease in print and products expense of $0.4 million and a decrease in events expense of $0.4 million, partially offset by an increase in branding and advertising expense of $0.4 million. The decrease in personnel-related costs of $27.0 million were primarily due to decreased headcount of approximately 26% in 2023 compared to prior year and includes decrease in salaries and wages of $12.1 million, bonus expense of $5.5 million, stock-based compensation expense of $3.7 million and payroll tax expense of $0.7 million and a decrease in transaction related bonuses of $4.9 million.

The decrease in product development expenses was primarily due to decreases in personnel-related costs of $11.7 million, outside services expense of $2.6 million and travel expense of $0.1 million. The decrease in personnel-related costs was primarily due to a decline in headcount of approximately 13% in 2023 compared to prior year and includes decreases in salaries and wages of $6.4 million, bonus expense of $3.8 million, stock-based compensation expense of $1.1 million and payroll tax expense of $0.4 million.

The decrease in general and administrative expenses was primarily due to decreases in provision for credit losses of $15.7 million, severance expense of $5.8 million, stock-based compensation expense of $5.3 million, salaries and wages of $5.2 million, insurance costs of $5.1 million, professional fees of $3.1 million, software expense of $1.9 million, employee benefits expense of $1.9 million, facilities expense of $0.6 million, bonus expense of $0.6 million, outside service expense of $0.6 million, donation expense of $0.5 million and payroll tax expense of $0.5 million. The decrease in compensation expense were due to decreased headcount of approximately 28% in 2023 compared to the prior year.

The increase in depreciation and amortization expense was primarily due to an increase in capitalized software amortization of $2.2 million, partially offset by a decrease in depreciation expense related to other assets of $1.6 million.

The increase in asset impairment charges was primarily due to $10.9 million in impairment of operating lease ROU asset and $1.3 million in impairment of leasehold improvement associated with our second headquarter space in Los Angeles, California, $8.7 million in impairment of intangible assets, capitalized software and property and equipment associated with the sunset of certain product offerings in December 2023 and $3.5 million related to the impairment of an equity investment. See Note 2, “Summary of Significant Accounting Policies” and Note 4, “Leases,” to our audited consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus for additional information.

Other income (expense), net decreased by $163.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. The decrease was primarily due to changes in TRA liability of $143.6 million and comparatively favorable changes in fair value of warrant liability of $23.9 million partially offset by an increase of $4.2 million related to a non-cash gain of $3.7 million associated with the discharge of a holdback obligation related to a prior acquisition and a decrease in political contribution expense of $0.5 million.

Provision for income taxes decreased by $179.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. The decrease was primarily due to a full valuation allowance that was recorded against our deferred tax assets during the year ended December 31, 2022. See Note 16, “Income Taxes,” to our audited consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus.

As of December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, we had cash of $34.4 million and $28.6 million, respectively. Our funds are being used for funding our current operations and potential strategic acquisitions in the future. We also intend to increase our capital expenditures to support the organic growth in our business and operations. We expect to fund our liquidity requirements from cash and working capital on hand at December 31, 2023, as well as from cash provided by operating activities. We believe that our existing cash and cash generated from operations will be sufficient to meet our anticipated cash needs for at least the next 12 months. However, our liquidity assumptions may prove to be incorrect, and we could exhaust our available financial resources sooner than we currently expect. We may seek to raise additional funds at any time through equity, equity-linked or debt financing arrangements. Our future capital requirements and the adequacy of available funds will depend on many factors. We may not be able to secure additional financing to meet our operating requirements on acceptable terms, or at all.

Cash from operating activities consists primarily of net income (loss) adjusted for certain non-cash items, including depreciation, amortization and asset impairments, change in fair value of warrant liability, change in TRA liability, stock-based compensation, deferred taxes, impairment loss, provision for doubtful accounts and the effect of changes in working capital.

Net cash provided by operating activities is also impacted by the effects of changes in operating assets and liabilities such as: accounts receivable which is impacted by the timing of customer billings and related collections from our customers; accounts payable and accrued expenses due to timing of payments; accrued personnel costs which are impacted by employee performance targets and the timing of payments related to employee bonus incentives.

Net cash provided by operating activities for the year ended December 31, 2023 was $22.9 million, which resulted from net loss of $15.7 million, non-cash items of $52.8 million, consisting of asset impairment charges of $24.4 million, stock-based compensation expense of $13.5 million, depreciation and amortization of $12.1 million, amortization of right of use lease assets of $4.9 million, provision for credit losses of $1.8 million, TRA remeasurement of $1.3 million, partially offset by a gain from the discharge of a holdback obligation related to a prior acquisition of $3.7 million, and the change in fair value of warrant liability of $1.5 million. The increase in net cash provided by operating activities was also impacted by net cash outflows of $14.2 million from changes in operating assets and liabilities. The net cash outflows from changes in operating assets and liabilities were primarily due to a decrease in accounts payable and accrued expenses of $15.3 million, a decrease in operating lease liabilities of $6.3 million and a decrease in deferred revenue of $0.3 million, partially offset by a decrease in accounts receivable of $4.5 million and a decrease in prepaid expenses and other assets of $3.3 million. The changes in operating assets and liabilities are mostly due to fluctuations in timing of cash receipts and payments.

Net cash used in operating activities for the year ended December 31, 2022 was $11.6 million, which resulted from net loss of $82.7 million, together with net cash outflows of $1.5 million from changes in operating assets and

Net cash used in investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2023 was $11.9 million, which resulted from $11.9 million cash paid for purchases of property and equipment, including certain capitalized software development cost.

Net cash used in investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2022 was $17.8 million, which resulted from $16.1 million cash paid for purchases of property and equipment, including certain capitalized software development cost, $1.0 million cash paid for other investments and $0.7 million net cash paid for acquisitions.

Net Cash used in financing activities for the year ended December 31, 2023 was $5.3 million, which resulted from $7.2 million of distribution payments to members of WMH LLC, $1.5 million for repayment of insurance premium financing and $0.4 million in proceeds from collection of related party note receivable.

Net cash from financing activities for the year ended December 31, 2022 was $9.8 million, which resulted from $7.3 million for repayment of insurance premium financing and $2.4 million of distribution payments to members of WMH LLC.

We primarily finance our operations and capital expenditures through cash flows generated by operations. To the extent existing cash and investments and cash from operations are not sufficient to fund future activities, we may need to raise additional funds. We may seek to raise additional funds through equity, equity-linked or debt financings. If we raise additional funds through the incurrence of indebtedness, such indebtedness may have rights that are senior to holders of our equity securities and could contain covenants that restrict operations. Any additional equity financing may be dilutive to stockholders. We may enter into investment or acquisition transactions in the future, which could require us to seek additional equity financing, incur indebtedness, or use cash resources.

We have non-cancellable contractual agreements primarily related to leases and other purchase obligations. As of December 31, 2023, future payments on our operating leases were $45.0 million. See Note 4, “Leases,” to our audited consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus. We also have minimum outstanding purchase obligations of $7.1 million in 2024, $7.3 million in 2025 and $7.5 million in 2026, due under software license agreements, of which the majority relates to our three-year AWS Enterprise agreement.

As of December 31, 2023 and 2022, our TRA liability was $1.8 million and $0.5 million, respectively. We expect that the payments we will be required to make under the TRA will not be substantial, and therefore, in conjunction with the recording of a full valuation allowance on the related TRA deferred tax assets, we have also adjusted the TRA liabilities as of December 31, 2023.

We will continue to evaluate the realization of the TRA tax attributes, and in the future, we may conclude that the TRA liability is probable of payment, and if the TRA is reinstated, the payments would be substantial. Assuming a reinstatement of the TRA liability, there are several assumptions that would be relevant such as, no material changes in relevant tax law, that there are no future redemptions or exchanges of Class A Units and that we earn sufficient taxable income to realize all tax benefits that are subject to the TRA, the tax savings associated with acquisitions of common units in the Business Combination would aggregate to approximately $166.3 million, as of December 31, 2023, over 15 years from Closing Date. Under this scenario, we would be required to pay to the Class A Unit holders

Our condensed consolidated financial statements and our consolidated financial statements are prepared in accordance with GAAP. The preparation of these condensed consolidated financial statements and consolidated financial statements requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenue, expenses and related disclosures. We evaluate our estimates and assumptions on an ongoing basis. Our estimates are based on historical experience and various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. Our actual results could differ from these estimates.

We believe that the assumptions and estimates associated with revenue recognition, income taxes, stock-based compensation, capitalized software development costs, provision for doubtful accounts, goodwill and intangible assets and fair value measurements to have the greatest potential impact on our consolidated financial statements. Therefore, we consider these to be our critical accounting policies and estimates. For further information on all of our significant accounting policies, see Note 2, “Summary of Significant Accounting Policies,” to our audited consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus.

We recognize revenue when the fundamental criteria for revenue recognition are met. We recognize revenue by applying the following five steps: the contract with the customer is identified; the performance obligations in the contract are identified; the transaction price is determined; the transaction price is allocated to the performance obligations in the contract; and revenue is recognized when (or as) we satisfy these performance obligations in an amount that reflects the consideration it expects to be entitled to in exchange for those services. We exclude sales taxes and other similar taxes from the measurement of the transaction price. The transaction price reflects the amount we expect to receive for such goods, net of discounts. Discounts issued are primarily related to our Together for Equity Access and Legislation, (“WM Teal”), program, through which we provide discounts including free software, advertising, educational materials and training programs to applicants or licenses under social equity licensing programs. We provide a discount to license holders who were awarded special status by the state based on owner qualifications. These are typically given in new markets to add more diversity and inclusion in the cannabis space. We validate a license’s social equity status on the applicable state’s website. For the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021, total discounts issued were $4.2 million, $4.5 million and $2.6 million, respectively. For clients that pay in advance for listing and other services, we record deferred revenue and recognize revenue over the applicable subscription term.

Our revenues are derived primarily from monthly subscriptions to Weedmaps for Business, featured and deal listings and other WM Ad solutions. Our Weedmaps for Business subscriptions generally have one-month terms that automatically renew unless notice of cancellation is provided in advance. Featured and deal listings and other WM Ad solutions are offered as add-on products to the Weedmaps for Business subscriptions. Featured and deal listings provide customers with premium placement ad solutions and discount and promotion pricing tools. Other WM Ad solutions include banner ads and promotion tiles on our marketplace ad as well as other advertising products on and off the Weedmaps marketplace. We have a fixed inventory of featured listing and display advertising in each market, and price is generally determined through a competitive auction process that reflects local market demand. Revenues for these arrangements are recognized over-time, generally during a month-to-month subscription period as the products are provided. We rarely need to allocate the transaction price to separate performance obligations. In the rare case that allocation of the transaction price is needed, We recognize revenue in proportion to the standalone selling prices of the underlying services at contract inception. The determination of the performance obligations and the timing of satisfaction of such obligations either over time or at a point-in-time requires us to make significant judgment and estimates.

As a result of the Business Combination, WM Technology, Inc. became the sole managing member of WMH LLC, which is treated as a partnership for U.S. federal and most applicable state and local income tax purposes. As a partnership, WMH LLC is not subject to U.S. federal and certain state and local income taxes. Accordingly, no provision for U.S. federal and state income taxes has been recorded in the financial statements for the period of January 1 to June 16, 2021 as this period was prior to the Business Combination. Any taxable income or loss generated by WMH LLC is passed through to and included in the taxable income or loss of its members, including WM Technology, Inc. following the Business Combination, on a pro rata basis. WM Technology, Inc. is subject to U.S. federal income taxes, in addition to state and local income taxes with respect to its allocable share of any taxable income of WMH LLC following the Business Combination. We are also subject to taxes in foreign jurisdictions. Tax laws and regulations are complex and periodically changing and the determination of our provision for income taxes, including our taxable income, deferred tax assets and TRA liability, requires us to make significant judgment, assumptions and estimates.

In connection with the Business Combination, we entered into a TRA with continuing members that provides for a payment to the continuing members of 85% of the amount of tax benefits, if any, that WM Technology, Inc. realizes, or is deemed to realize, as a result of redemptions or exchanges of WMH Units. In connection with such potential future tax benefits resulting from the Business Combination and subsequent redemptions or exchanges of WMH Units, we have established a deferred tax asset for the additional tax basis and a corresponding TRA liability of 85% of the expected benefit. The remaining 15% is recorded within paid-in capital. Our calculation of the TRA asset and liability requires estimates of its future qualified taxable income over the term of the TRA as a basis to determine if the related tax benefits are expected to be realized. As of December 31, 2023 and 2022, TRA liability were $1.8 million and $0.5 million.

Based on the weight of all available evidence, both positive and negative, we determined during the three months ended December 31, 2022 that a full valuation allowance was required against our net deferred tax assets. We continued the remeasurement of the valuation allowance during the year ended December 31, 2023 and determined that a full valuation allowance was required as of December 31, 2023. See Note 16, “Income Taxes,” to our audited consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus.

We measure fair value of employee stock-based compensation awards on the date of grant and allocate the related expense over the requisite service period. The fair value of restricted stock units (“RSUs”) and performance-based restricted stock units (“PRSUs”) is equal to the market price of our Class A common stock on the date of grant. The fair value of the Class P Units is measured using the Black-Scholes-Merton valuation model. When awards include a performance condition that impacts the vesting of the award, we record compensation cost when it becomes probable that the performance condition will be met. The level of achievement of such goals in the performance-based restricted stock awards may cause the actual number of units that ultimately vest to range from 0% to 200% of the original units granted. Forfeitures of stock-based awards are recognized as they occur. For the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, we recognized stock-based compensation expense of $13.5 million and $23.5 million, respectively. See Note 14, “Stock-based Compensation,” to our audited consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus.

We capitalize certain costs related to the development and enhancement of the Weedmaps platform and SaaS solutions. In accordance with authoritative guidance, we capitalize these costs when the preliminary development project stage is completed, management has authorized further funding for the completion of the project, and it is probable that the project will be completed and performed as intended. Such costs are amortized when placed in service, on a straight-line basis over the estimated useful life of the related asset, generally estimated to be three years. Costs incurred prior to meeting these criteria together with costs incurred for training and maintenance are expensed as incurred and recorded in product development expenses on our consolidated statements of operations. Costs incurred for enhancements that were expected to result in additional features or functionality are capitalized and expensed over the estimated useful life of the enhancements, generally three years. The accounting for website and internal-use software costs requires us to make significant judgment, assumptions and estimates related to the timing and amount of recognized capitalized software development costs. For the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, we capitalized $13.1 million and $15.5 million of costs related to the development of software applications.

We measure credit losses on our trade accounts receivable using the current expected credit loss model under Accounting Standards Codification 326 Financial Instruments – Credit Losses, which is based on the expected losses rather than incurred losses. Under the credit loss model, lifetime expected credit losses are measured and recognized at each reporting date based on historical, current and forecast information.

We calculate the expected credit losses on a pool basis for those trade receivables that have similar risk characteristics. For those trade receivables that do not share similar risk characteristics, the allowance for expected credit losses is calculated on an individual basis. Risk characteristics relevant to our accounts receivable include balance of customer account and aging status. The allowance for credit losses was $8.7 million and $12.2 million as of December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022, respectively. See Note 2, “Summary of Significant Accounting Policies,” to our audited consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus for additional information.

Assets and liabilities acquired from acquisitions are recorded at their estimated fair values. The excess of the purchase price over the estimated fair values of the net assets acquired, including identifiable intangible assets, is recorded as goodwill. The accounting for goodwill and intangible assets requires us to make significant judgement, estimates and assumptions. Significant estimates and assumptions in valuing acquired intangible assets and liabilities include projected cash flows attributable to the assets or liabilities, asset useful lives and discount rates.

Goodwill is not amortized and is subject to annual impairment testing, or between annual tests if an event or change in circumstance occurs that would more likely than not reduce the fair value of a reporting unit below its carrying value. Goodwill is assessed for impairment annually on December 31. For the year ended December 31, 2023, in accordance with our annual assessment policy, we opted to bypass the qualitative assessment and performed a quantitative assessment to test goodwill for impairment. As part of our impairment assessment, the fair value of the reporting unit isestimated using a discounted cash flow valuation which incorporates assumptions regarding long-term growth rates, revenue and earnings projections, estimation of cash flows, discount rates and other factors. Changes in these inputs could materially affect the results of our impairment review. In conducting our quantitative assessment, we determined that the fair value of our goodwill substantially exceeded its carrying amount by approximately 18%, and as a result, no impairment existed as of the annual assessment date of December 31, 2023. If our forecasts of cash flows or other key inputs are negatively revised in the future, the estimated fair value of the reporting unit would be adversely impacted, potentially leading to an impairment in the future that could materially affect our operating results.

Intangible assets deemed to have finite lives are amortized on a straight-line basis over their estimated useful lives, where the useful life is the period over which the asset is expected to contribute directly, or indirectly, to our future cash flows. Intangible assets are reviewed for impairment on an interim basis when certain events or circumstances exist. For amortizable intangible assets, impairment exists when the carrying amount of the intangible asset exceeds its fair value. At least annually, the remaining useful life is evaluated. We recorded an impairment charge of $6.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 related to intangible assets associated with certain product offerings that were sunset in December 2023, which is included in asset impairment charges in the consolidated statements of operations. No intangible asset impairment charges have been recorded for the years ended December 31, 2022 and

We assess potential impairments to our long-lived assets, which includes property and equipment and operating lease assets, at least annually or whenever events or circumstances indicate that the carrying amount of an asset may not be recoverable. As of December 31, 2023 and 2022, our operating leases had a weighted average remaining lease term of 6.3 years and 6.8 years and a weighted-average discount rate of 9.8%. Our lease agreements do not provide an implicit rate and as a result, we used an estimated incremental borrowing rate, which was derived from third-party information available at the time we adopted ASC 842 in determining the present value of future lease payments. The rate used is for a secured borrowing of a similar term as the right of use asset. The fair value was estimated using an income approach based on management’s forecast of future cash flows expected to be derived based on current sublease market rent.

We assess impairment of ROU assets when an event and change in circumstance indicates that the carrying value of such ROU assets may not be recoverable. If an event and a change in circumstance indicates that the carrying value of an ROU asset may not be recoverable and the estimated fair value attributable to the ROU asset is less than its carrying value, an impairment loss equals to the excess of the ROU asset’s carrying value over its fair value is recognized.

The fair values of ROU assets were estimated using an income approach based on management’s forecast of future cash flows expected to be derived based on the sublease market rent. First, we test the asset group for recoverability by comparing the undiscounted cash flows of the asset group, which include expected future lease payments related to the lease agreement offset by expected sublease income, to the carrying amount of the asset group. If the first step of the long-lived asset impairment test concludes that the carrying amount of the asset group is not recoverable, we perform the second step of the long-lived asset impairment test by comparing the fair value of the asset group to its carrying amount and recognizing a lease impairment charge for the amount by which the carrying amount exceeds the fair value. To estimate the fair value of the asset group, we rely on a discounted cash flow approach using market participant assumptions of the expected cash flows.

In 2023, we recognized a ROU asset impairment charge of $10.9 million driven by updated sublease assumptions for our second headquarter space in Los Angeles, California, pursuant to an operating lease that expires in 2031. In addition, we recognized ROU asset impairment charges of $0.6 million and $2.4 million during the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively, related to certain ROU assets reducing the carrying values of the lease assets to their estimated fair values based on the discounted cash flows of estimated net rental income for the office spaces subleased. The ROU impairment charges are included in general and administrative expenses in the consolidated statements of operations.

We assess impairment of property and equipment when an event and change in circumstance indicates that the carrying value of such assets may not be recoverable. If an event and a change in circumstance indicates that the carrying amount of an asset (or asset group) may not be recoverable and the expected undiscounted cash flows attributable to the asset are less than its carrying value, an impairment loss equals to the excess of the asset’s carrying value over its fair value is recognized. For the year ended December 31, 2023, we recorded impairment charges of $3.9 million of which $2.7 million related to property and equipment associated with certain product offerings that were sunset in December 2023 and $1.3 million related to leasehold improvements associated with the impairment of a ROU asset both of which are included in asset impairment charges in the consolidated statements of operations. No impairments to property and equipment were recorded during the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021.

In connection with the Business Combination, we assumed 12,499,993 Public Warrants and 7,000,000 Private Placement Warrants. As of December 31, 2023, 12,499,973 of the Public Warrant and all of the Private Placement Warrants remained outstanding. The warrants are measured at fair value under ASC 820 - Fair Value Measurements. The fair value of the Public Warrants is classified as Level 1 financial instruments and is based on the publicly listed trading price of our Public Warrants. The fair value of the Private Warrants is determined with Level 3 inputs using the Black-Scholes model. The fair value of the Private Placement Warrants may change significantly as additional data is obtained. In evaluating this information, considerable judgment is required to interpret the data used to develop the assumptions and estimates. The estimates of fair value may not be indicative of the amounts that could

We have operations both within the United States and in foreign jurisdictions, and we are exposed to market risks in the ordinary course of our business, including the effects of foreign currency fluctuations, interest rate changes and inflation. Information relating to quantitative and qualitative disclosures about these market risks is set forth below.

Assets and liabilities denominated in a foreign currency are translated into U.S. dollars using the exchange rates in effect at the balance sheet date. Revenue and expense accounts are translated at the average exchange rates during the periods. The impact of exchange rate fluctuations from translation of assets and liabilities is insignificant for the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021. For all periods presented, we believe the exposure to foreign currency fluctuation from operating expenses is immaterial as the related costs do not constitute a significant portion of our total expenses.

We consider all highly liquid investments with an original maturity of three months or less to be cash equivalents. As of December 31, 2023, we did not have any cash equivalents.

The primary objective of our investment activities is to preserve principal while maximizing income without significantly increasing risk. Because we only hold cash, our portfolio’s fair value is insensitive to interest rate changes. In future periods, we will continue to evaluate our investment policy in order to ensure that we continue to meet our overall objectives. A hypothetical 100 basis point increase or decrease in interest rates would not have a material effect on our financial results.

Our financial instruments are potentially subject to concentrations of credit risk. We place our cash with high quality credit institutions. From time to time, we maintain cash balances at certain institutions in excess of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation limit. As of December 31, 2023, we had cash balances that exceeded the deposit insurance limit with five financial institutions. Management believes that the risk of loss is not significant and has not experienced any losses in such accounts.

Other than as set forth in the note above titled “Growth and Retention of Our Paying Clients”, we do not believe that inflation has had a material effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. We continue to monitor the impact of inflation in order to minimize its effects through pricing strategies, productivity improvements and cost reductions. If our costs were to become subject to significant inflationary pressures, we may not be able to fully offset such higher costs through price increases. Our inability or failure to do so could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. We do not believe that inflation has had a material effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations during the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021.

Founded in 2008, and headquartered in Irvine, California, WM Technology, Inc. operates a leading online cannabis marketplace for consumers together with a comprehensive set of eCommerce and compliance software solutions for cannabis businesses, which are sold to both storefront locations and delivery operators (“retailers”) and brands in the legalized cannabis markets in states and territories of the United States. Our comprehensive business-to-consumer and business-to-business suite of products afford cannabis retailers and brands of all sizes integrated tools to compliantly run their businesses and to reach, convert, and retain consumers.

WM Technology, Inc. was initially incorporated in the Cayman Islands on June 7, 2019 under the name “Silver Spike Acquisition Corp” (“Silver Spike”). Silver Spike was formed for the purpose of effecting a merger, amalgamation, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization or similar business combination with one or more businesses. On June 16, 2021 (the “Closing Date”), Silver Spike consummated the business combination (the “Business Combination”), pursuant to that certain Agreement and Plan of Merger, dated December 10, 2020, by and among Silver Spike, Silver Spike Merger Sub LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and a wholly owned direct subsidiary of Silver Spike Acquisition Corp., WM Holding Company, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (when referred to in its pre-Business Combination capacity, “Legacy WMH” and following the Business Combination, “WMH LLC”), and Ghost Media Group, LLC, a Nevada limited liability company. On the Closing Date, and in connection with the closing of the Business Combination, Silver Spike was domesticated and continues as a Delaware corporation, and changed its name to WM Technology, Inc.

Our business primarily consists of our commerce-driven marketplace (“Weedmaps”), and our fully integrated suite of end-to-end Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) solutions software offering (“Weedmaps for Business”). The Weedmaps marketplace provides cannabis consumers with information regarding cannabis retailers and brands. In addition, the Weedmaps marketplace aggregates data from a variety of sources, including retailer point-of-sale (“POS”) solutions, to provide consumers with the ability to browse by strain, price, cannabinoids and other information regarding locally available cannabis products, through our website and mobile apps. The marketplace provides consumers with product discovery, access to deals and discounts, and reservation of products for pickup by consumers or delivery to consumers by participating retailers (retailers complete orders and process payments outside of the Weedmaps marketplace as Weedmaps serves only as a portal, passing a consumer’s inquiry to the dispensary). The marketplace also provides education and learning information to help newer consumers learn about the types of products to purchase. We believe the size, loyalty and engagement of our user base and the frequency of consumption of cannabis by our user base makes the Weedmaps marketplace highly valuable to our clients.

Weedmaps for Business, our SaaS offering, is a comprehensive set of eCommerce and compliance software solutions catered towards cannabis retailers, delivery services and brands that streamline front and back-end operations and help manage compliance needs. These tools support cannabis businesses at every stage in the consumer funnel, enabling them to:

We offer this functionality through a packaged software solution that includes (based on availability within any given market and state-level regulations) (i) a listing page with product menu on weedmaps.com, our iOS Weedmaps mobile application and our Android Weedmaps mobile application, which allows clients to disclose their license information, hours of operation, contact information, discount policies and other information that may be required under applicable state law, (ii) the ability to reserve products for pickup by consumers or delivery to consumers (either through weedmaps.com, on a white labeled WM Store website or third-party websites through our orders and

The state-legal cannabis industry in the United States has grown consistently in recent years and was estimated to be between approximately $27-$28 billion in 2023, according to Wall Street analyst estimates, and is expected by some estimates to grow to $40 billion by 2027, assuming a continued pace of new state legalization, with 70%² of U.S. adults since 2020 in support of having legal access to cannabis. As of September 30, 2024, thirty-nine states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana have legalized some form of cannabis use for certain medical purposes. Twenty-four of those states, the District of Columbia, Guam and Northern Mariana have legalized cannabis for adults for non-medical purposes as well (sometimes referred to as adult or recreational use). Eight additional states have legalized forms of low-potency cannabis, for select medical conditions. Only three states continue to prohibit cannabis entirely. Despite expectations of growth, the regulated cannabis market in the United States is still nascent and fragmented, with significant challenges facing both consumers seeking to understand cannabis and find the right products for them and businesses seeking to operate compliantly and to effectively reach and market to cannabis consumers. Within the U.S., cannabis users (defined as adults, aged 21 and older, who have consumed cannabis in the past year) represent less than 22% of the total U.S. adult, aged 21 and older, population today (and less than 16% for those that consumed in the past month)³. On the client side, as of December 31, 2023, there were approximately 11,900 retail licenses across the United States with medical and/or adult-use regulations in place, which is an effective retail density of approximately one retail license per 21,570 residents across these markets in the aggregate, based on data available from individual governmental cannabis license databases and the U.S. Census Bureau estimates for both licenses and population.

In addition to these nascent consumer and business dynamics, cannabis itself is a highly complex, regulated and diverse, non-shelf stable consumer good that spans hundreds of strains and a growing set of form factors available for consumption, including flower, pre-rolls, vapes, edibles, tinctures and concentrates. Despite these complexities, consumers still expect the same product information, discovery and comparison options across multiple channels from cannabis businesses that they expect from other retailers or brands. These consumer expectations, coupled with the lack of normalized product information in the industry, in addition to the unique attributes of cannabis as a nascent and highly regulated consumer product, create significant challenges for retailers and brands who serve cannabis consumers. Retailers and brands must meet these consumer expectations and provide omni-channel engagement opportunities with the same (i) level of service, (ii) richness of product information, (iii) ability to compare prices, and (iv) ease of product and brand discovery that consumers would receive when researching other consumer product categories. Further, brands are limited in their ability to market and sell directly and need to find ways to communicate to consumers. At the same time, these businesses must comply with a rapidly evolving legal and regulatory landscape that differs by state and across cities and counties within each state, creating challenges in the ability to scale in a capital-efficient way.

Our solutions are designed to address the challenges facing cannabis consumers and businesses. The Weedmaps marketplace allows cannabis consumers to search for and browse cannabis products from retailers and brands, and ultimately reserve products from certain local retailers, in a manner similar to other technology platforms with breadth and depth of product, brand and retailer selection. With the development of Weedmaps for Business, we offer an end-to-end platform for licensed cannabis retailers to comply with state law. We sell a monthly subscription offering to retailer and brand clients as well as upsell and add-on offerings to licensed clients.

In December 2023, we completed the sunset of WM AdSuite, WM CRM and WM Screens product offerings as we continue to focus our efforts on other Weedmaps for Business products that support the Weedmaps marketplace and improve the eCommerce experience for our clients and users.

We sell our Weedmaps for Business suite in the United States and have a limited number of non-monetized listings in several other countries including Austria, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. We operate in the United States, Canada and other foreign jurisdictions where medical and/or adult cannabis use is legal under state or national law. As of June 30, 2024, we actively operated in over 35 U.S. states and territories that have adult-use and/or medical-use regulations in place. We define actively operated markets as those U.S. states or territories with greater than $1,000 monthly revenue. Substantially all of our revenue was generated in the United States.

Our mission is to power a transparent and inclusive global cannabis economy. Our technology addresses the challenges facing both consumers seeking to understand cannabis products and businesses who serve cannabis users in a legally compliant fashion. Since our founding in 2008, Weedmaps has become a premier destination for cannabis consumers to discover and browse information regarding cannabis and cannabis products, permitting product discovery and order-ahead for pickup or delivery by participating retailers. Weedmaps for Business is a set of eCommerce-enablement tools designed to help retailers and brands get the best out of the Weedmaps’ consumer experience, create labor efficiencies and manage compliance needs.

We hold a strong belief in the importance of enabling safe, legal access to cannabis for consumers worldwide. We believe we offer the only comprehensive software platform that allows cannabis retailers to reach their target audience, quickly and cost effectively, addressing a wide range of needs. We are committed to building the software solutions that power cannabis businesses compliantly in the industry, to advocating for legalization, licensing and social equity of cannabis and to facilitating further learning through partnership with subject matter experts to provide detailed, accurate information about cannabis.

As we continue to expand the presence and increase the number of consumers on the Weedmaps marketplace and broaden our offerings, we generate more value for our business clients. As we continue to expand the presence and increase the number of cannabis businesses listed on weedmaps.com, we become a more compelling marketplace for consumers. To capitalize on the growth opportunities of our two-sided marketplace and solutions, we plan to continue making investments in raising brand awareness, increasing penetration within existing markets and expanding to new markets, as well as continuing to develop and monetize new solutions to extend the functionality of our platform. These investments serve to deepen the consumer experience with our platform and continue to provide a high level of support to our business clients.

Despite cannabis being a large and growing sector in the United States, we believe that cannabis is unlike many other consumer goods and retail categories for a number of reasons:

Since our founding in 2008, we have grown to become a leading provider of technology solutions to the cannabis industry by leveraging our competitive strengths, including:

As a leading marketplace and software platform, our goal is not only to grow our market share but to grow the entire market by promoting wider access to licensed cannabis, educating consumers on how to shop for cannabis and providing licensed operators with the tools they need to access users and grow their businesses. We believe we are well-positioned to capitalize on underlying growth across our end-markets by executing against our strategy as follows:

Our direct competitors for individual components or parts of our platform include cannabis-focused, technology companies like Leafly, Dutchie and Jane Technologies and a variety of cannabis-focused marketing and advertising technology solutions. In addition, for our retail listing pages, our platform may also compete with current or potential products and solutions offered by internet search engines and advertising networks like Google, Yelp, various other newspaper, television and media companies, as well as outdoor billboard advertising. We believe that the principal competitive factors in our market include the scale of our network, comprehensiveness of offerings, ease of adoption and use, ability to facilitate compliance with the complex, disparate regulations applicable to businesses operating in the cannabis industry and the breadth and trustworthiness of information available to consumers and brand. We believe we compete favorably based on these factors. On May 16, 2024, President Biden announced that the U.S. Attorney General initiated proceedings to transfer cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III, through a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) published on May 21, 2024 This decision is expected to have far reaching implications that are not yet fully understood. For example, rescheduling may increase competitors in this space if non-cannabis technology companies who have previously avoided the space now decide to enter the market.

Our sales team is primarily based out of our Irvine, California headquarters. Members of our sales team are knowledgeable about the products and add-ons that we offer and assist new and existing clients with our platform.

We generate many leads for new listing pages through the applicable state cannabis regulators’ lists of licensees. Other leads are created from inbound requests by applicants for cannabis licenses to begin establishing their business’ presence on our platform pending an expected cannabis license.

We believe the quality and strength of our platform is our most valuable marketing asset. Our marketing strategy, across both business-to-consumer and business-to-business commerce, consists of user acquisition, brand marketing, communications and field marketing.

Our key marketing efforts consist of driving awareness of the marketplace, new user acquisition, and increasing platform engagement with existing users. To drive awareness, we apply a range of strategies from broad integrated marketing campaigns, such as our work each year on April 20^th (“420”), to local, on-the ground events in partnership with brands and retailers like Jack in the Box. While many traditional paid channels are still not available to cannabis industry brands (Google search and some social platforms for example) we have an evolving playbook of tactics to acquire new users that includes a combination of targeted out-of-home, programmatic display, and affiliate marketing campaigns. We augment our paid efforts with social media and SEO tactics to drive organic traffic. To engage and retain existing users, we apply lifecycle tactics, leveraging our first party data to personalize touch points based on user interests.

In 2023, our marketing function continued to focus on ways to drive greater adoption of our platform through new and innovative tactics such as in-app promotions and shopping tools, and self-help chat bots. Given the strength of our brand, we have continued to see strength in the performance of our marketing tactics in what can be a crowded market, easing the acquisition or upsell process for our sales team.

To support the growth of an inclusive cannabis industry, we participate in policy panels and organize educational sessions to educate attendees about the importance of social equity programs and other policy initiatives that are designed to ensure the ability of people of color and those impacted by the war on drugs to participate in the legal cannabis markets that are opening (i.e. social equity licensing programs). We have drafted white papers and mock legislative provisions that were designed to support the enactment of social equity licensing programs and have advocated for state and local governments to enact social equity licensing programs. We have established a program, WM Teal, which stands for “Together for Equity Access and Legislation,” through which we provide free software, advertising, educational materials and training programs to applicants or licenses under social equity licensing programs.

Our product development efforts focus on adding new features and solutions to our platform, as well as increasing the functionality and enhancing the ease of use of our platform. While we expect product development costs to increase as we continue to increase the functionality of our platform, we expect the percentage of total revenues represented by such costs to remain unchanged.

Our intellectual property and proprietary rights are valuable assets that are important to our business. In our efforts to safeguard our intellectual property, including copyrights, trade secrets, trademarks, patents and other forms of intellectual property rights, we rely on a combination of federal, state, common law and international rights in the jurisdictions in which we operate.

As of June 30, 2024, we hold a variety of trademark registrations in the United States, Canada, Japan, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Mexico and Australia.

In addition to our numerous trademark applications and registrations, we have United States copyright registrations for our weedmaps.com website, “Grow One,” and two versions of our Lab API documentation. Further, we own several domain names, including: weedmaps.com, marijuana.com, cannabis.com, wmpolicy.com, themuseumofweed.com, wm-retail.com, wmforbusiness.com and WM.store. Our trademarks and domain names are material to our business and brand identity.

We also rely on non-disclosure agreements, invention assignment agreements, intellectual property assignment agreements, or license agreements with employees, independent contractors, consumers, software providers and other third parties, which protect and limit access to and use of our proprietary intellectual property.

Though we rely, in part, upon these legal and contractual protections, we believe that factors such as the skills and ingenuity of our employees, as well as the functionality and frequent enhancements to our platform are larger contributors to our success in the marketplace.

Circumstances outside our control could pose a threat to our intellectual property rights. For more information, see the section entitled “Risk Factors—Risks Related to our Business and Industry.”

The cannabis industry has certain industry holidays that in recent years have resulted in increased purchases by cannabis consumers. Such “holidays” include, but are not limited to 420, July 10^th and the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Likewise, our clients will typically increase spend heading into these events. We also typically invest in marketing spend around these holidays which can create some seasonality in our sales and market expenses from quarter to quarter. While seasonality has not had a significant impact on our results in the past, our clients may experience seasonality in their businesses which in turn can impact the revenue generated from them. Our business may become more seasonal in the future and historical patterns in our business may not be a reliable indicator of future performance.

As of September 30, 2024, we had 427 full-time employees and 16 temporary employees, including 182 in engineering, product and design, 177 in sales and marketing and 84 in general and administrative. Of these employees, 436 are located in the United States and 7 are located in Canada.

We believe that being able to attract and retain top talent is both a strategic advantage for us and necessary to realize our mission of powering a transparent and inclusive global cannabis economy. Our position as a leading technology provider to the cannabis industry helps us attract high caliber candidates who are technically skilled and passionate about our mission and products. We devote substantial resources to this task. Our dedicated, best-in-class Talent Acquisition team is focused on finding and attracting diverse and capable talent, and our People & Workplace team is focused on making us a world class employer of choice for that talent once they get here. None of our employees are represented by a labor union or covered by collective bargaining agreements and we have not experienced any work stoppages.

Numerous countries and territories have moved in recent years to regulate and tax cannabis, particularly medical cannabis. Most of these jurisdictions present complex regulatory regimes that require licensed operators to comply with substantial reporting, testing, packaging, distribution and security requirements.

Notwithstanding the trend toward further state legalization, the U.S. government continues to categorize cannabis as a prohibited controlled substance, and accordingly the cultivation, processing, distribution, sale, advertisement of sale and possession by our customers violate federal law, as discussed further in the sections entitled “Risk Factors—Risks Related to our Business and Industry.”

Since 2014, versions of the U.S. omnibus spending bill have included a provision prohibiting the DOJ, which includes the Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”), from using appropriated funds to prevent states from implementing their medical-use cannabis laws. Federal courts have held that the provision prohibits the DOJ from spending funds to prosecute individuals who engage in conduct permitted by state medical-use cannabis laws and who strictly comply with such laws.

Despite the Sessions Memo, the U.S. government has not prioritized the enforcement of those laws against cannabis companies complying with state law and their vendors, and has not since 2014. No reversal of that policy of prosecutorial discretion is expected under a Biden administration given his actions on cannabis to date, and the statements of Attorney General Merrick Garland on the subject, although prosecutions against state-legal entities cannot be ruled out entirely at this time. During his campaign, President Biden promised federal reform on cannabis, including decriminalization generally and has made history in several impactful ways. First, in 2022, President Biden signed into law the “Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act,” a bill aimed at easing restrictions on cannabis research — bipartisan legislation which is the first standalone cannabis reform bill to pass both the House and Senate. Additionally, on October 6, 2022, President Biden issued a presidential proclamation pardoning federal convictions for simple marijuana possession offenses, encouraging state governors to do the same on the state level where permissible, and requesting that the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Attorney General initiate an administrative process to review cannabis’s Schedule I classification under the CSA. On August 29, 2023, HHS issued a letter to the DEA recommending that cannabis be reclassified as a Schedule III controlled substance under the CSA. On May 16, 2024, President Joe Biden announced that his administration is officially moving to reclassify cannabis from a Schedule I to a Schedule III controlled substance under the CSA. There will then be a 60-day public comment period before the rule is potentially finalized. If this move is confirmed, it would be a momentous change whose full implications are currently unknown. The DEA’s decision to reclassify cannabis would neither legalize nor likely eliminate current state cannabis program. If placed under Schedule III, cannabis will cannabis will remain a controlled substance and state-legal programs will continue to operate outside of federally legal channels in their distribution of the substance particularly because no state operator holds a DEA registration to possess or distribute cannabis. One notable impact for our clients is that rescheduling cannabis to Schedule III would remove the various tax-related hindrances tied to IRS code section 280E, and cannabis-related businesses (whether involved in medical or adult-use cannabis) would finally be able to take advantage of all applicable deductions and credits on their business taxes that other businesses enjoy. However, some fear that the DEA or FDA may impose additional requirements or begin to target enforcement on state cannabis programs. In the unlikely event that the federal government were to reverse its long-standing hands-off approach to the state legal cannabis markets and start more broadly enforcing federal law regarding cannabis, we would likely be unable to execute our business plan, and our business and financial results would be adversely affected.

U.S. Attorney General, Merrick Garland, is expected to not interfere with cannabis businesses operating in compliance with states’ laws. During his confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate, Judge Garland testified that prosecuting state-legal cannabis companies would not be a “useful use of limited resources.” In April, 2022, Attorney General Garland reiterated that prosecuting the possession of cannabis is “not an efficient use” of federal resources, especially “given the ongoing opioid and methamphetamine epidemic[s]” facing the nation. On March 1, 2023, Attorney General Garland confirmed that his Department is continuing work on a new cannabis enforcement guidance, which he states would be “very close to what was done in the Cole memorandum.” Although any such guidance issued would not have the force of law, and could not be enforced by the courts, such a guidance would likely mean that the status quo of federal non-enforcement is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

Members of the U.S. Congress from both parties have introduced bills to end the federal cannabis prohibition, by de-scheduling cannabis completely and regulating it. In addition to broader reforms, this session has seen additional

Some of our retail clients sell products with hemp-derived cannabinoids, including CBD. In December 2018, the U.S. government removed hemp and extracts of hemp from the CSA schedules through the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, Pub. L. 115-334. Accordingly, the production, sale and possession of hemp or extracts of hemp, including certain CBD products, no longer violate the CSA. The states have implemented a patchwork of different laws on hemp and its extracts. Additionally, the Food & Drug Administration (“FDA”) claims that the Food, Drugs & Cosmetics Act significantly limits the legality of certain hemp-derived CBD products. In January 2023, FDA affirmed that the agency will not compromise—or create new standards—in evaluating or permitting cannabis or cannabinoid compounds and products, and particularly cannabidiol (“CBD”), indicating that Congress must take action to end the stalemate between federal and state laws and the purgatory of FDA selective enforcement. While enforcement regarding hemp-derived products has generally been limited, changes in enforcement priorities or further federal regulations could negatively impact our clients that sell such products, which could adversely impact our business, operating results, financial condition, brand and reputation.

We have been neither a defendant in a criminal action nor the subject of a civil or regulatory enforcement proceeding, prosecuted by a U.S. governmental authority based on our provision of products and solutions to the cannabis industry. Furthermore, we believe that Section 230 provides immunity from civil and state criminal liability to internet service provider intermediaries in the United States, such as us, for content provided on their platforms that they did not create or develop. We do not create or develop the information that appears on our clients’ listing pages and other advertising placements, although our moderation teams may take down a client’s information if it breaches our listing restrictions or admonish consumers who post reviews that violate our community terms of use (which, for example, prohibit profanity and racism). We do author and edit certain original content that appears in other sections of our website, such as WM News and WM Learn. All of these sections are general news and information, and none of these sections are advertisements for, or listing pages of, cannabis businesses. For additional information about Section 230, see the sections entitled “Business—Overview” and “Risk Factors—Risks Related to our Business and Industry.”

Our clients are subject to licensing and related requirements under applicable laws and regulations, and our own compliance policies, and some of our clients currently and in the future may not be in compliance with all such requirements. Currently, we require all cannabis retailers on Weedmaps to display a valid, unexpired state-issued license number on their listing. We have a dedicated Policy & Compliance Operations team that reviews license information, both on submission and on an ongoing basis, to ensure validity and accuracy. For certain Weedmaps products or services, we may request additional verification and documentation. Additionally, we require contractual representations and warranties from our clients that they are complying with state law. If, despite our policies to verify state-licensure, unlicensed or noncompliant businesses are able to access our products, it could subject us to legal or regulatory enforcement and negative publicity, which could adversely impact our business, operating results, financial condition, brand and reputation.

Medical cannabis has been legal in Canada since 1999 through various regulatory regimes. On October 17, 2018, the Cannabis Act (Canada) came into force. The Cannabis Act governs both the medical and the regulated adult-use markets in Canada. Prior to October 17, 2018, legal access to and use of medical cannabis in Canada was regulated under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and the associated Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (“ACMPR”). Under the Cannabis Act, holders of licenses to cultivate and/or process cannabis are also permitted to supply cannabis under their existing licenses obtained pursuant to the ACMPR to the regulated adult-use market.

Legalized cannabis is expanding in other parts of the world with countries adopting varying degrees of legalization or decriminalization. We do not yet regard these countries as viable marketplaces for our products, though we have ongoing tests of a small number of listings in several markets where listings are legally permissible.

The information set forth under “Commitments and Contingencies—Litigation” in Note 4 of the notes to the unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus are incorporated by reference.

As previously disclosed, in the second quarter of 2022, our board of directors received an internal complaint regarding the calculation, definition and reporting of our monthly active users (“MAUs”) metric. In response, our board of directors formed a special committee of independent directors to conduct an internal investigation with the assistance of outside counsel. As a result of the findings of that internal investigation, we provided certain additional information regarding the growth and nature of our previously-reported MAUs in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2022 filed with the SEC on August 9, 2022. This investigation found no impact on our financial results under accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (“GAAP”) or the reporting or disclosure of any currently disclosed non-GAAP financial metric. As also previously reported, in the third quarter of 2022, we determined not to report MAUs going forward. In August 2022, our board of directors determined to voluntarily report the internal complaint and subsequent internal investigation to the SEC, following which the SEC’s Division of Enforcement commenced an investigation. We have been fully cooperating with that investigation.

As also previously reported in the Current Report on Form 8-K filed on July 25, 2024, on July 22, 2024, we reached an agreement in principle with the SEC staff to resolve the SEC investigation with respect to the Company. Under the terms of the settlement, we consented, without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings, to the entry of an administrative cease-and-desist order finding violations of Sections 17(a)(2) and (3) of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, Sections 13(a), and 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and Rules 12b-20, 13a-1, 13a-11, 13a-13, and 14a-9 thereunder, and to pay a civil money penalty of $1.5 million. The settlement was approved by the SEC, and the administrative cease-and-desist order was entered in September 2024. We issued payment to the SEC, and it was received by the SEC, in October 2024. Accordingly, the SEC enforcement matter is concluded with respect to the Company.

Further, on November 8, 2024, a shareholder derivative action, captioned DeGennaro v. Francis, et. al, Case No. 8:24- cv-02454 was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against certain members of our Board of Directors and certain former and current officers. The plaintiff purports to bring the action derivatively on behalf of the Company, and the Company is a nominal defendant in the action. The derivative complaint alleges, among other things, that the individual defendants authorized or permitted materially false statements and/or material omissions of fact relating to historical public reporting of MAUs. The derivative complaint asserts claims for violations of Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act as well as claims for breach of fiduciary duty, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, and waste of corporate assets. The derivative complaint seeks unspecified damages on behalf of the Company, disgorgement or restitution, corporate governance reforms, declaratory relief, and an award of costs and expenses to the derivative plaintiff, including attorneys’ fees.

Further, on November 18, 2024, a shareholder derivative action, captioned Pearson v. Francis, et. al, Case No. 8:24-cv-02525 was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against certain former and current members of our Board of Directors and certain former and current officers. The plaintiff purports to bring the action derivatively on behalf of the Company, and the Company is a nominal defendant in the action. The derivative complaint alleges, among other things, that the individual defendants authorized or permitted materially false statements and/or material omissions of fact relating to historical public reporting of MAUs and corporate governance matters. The derivative complaint asserts claims for violations of Sections 14(a) and for contribution under Sections 10(b) and 21D of the Exchange Act as well as claims for breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, abuse of control, gross mismanagement and waste of corporate assets. The derivative complaint seeks unspecified damages on behalf of the Company, corporate governance reforms, and an award of costs and expenses to the derivative plaintiff, including attorneys' fees.

Our Internet address is www.weedmaps.com. Our investor relations website is located at https://ir.weedmaps.com. Our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and our Proxy Statements and any amendments to these reports, are available through our investor relations website, free of charge, after we file them with the SEC. We may from time to time provide important disclosures to investors by posting them in the investor relations section of our website, as allowed by SEC rules.

The SEC maintains an Internet website at www.sec.gov that contains reports, proxy and information statements and other information regarding our company that we file electronically with the SEC. The contents of our websites are not incorporated by reference into this prospectus or in any other report or document we file with the SEC, and any references to our websites are intended to be inactive textual references only.

The following table sets forth certain information with respect to our executive officers and directors as of November 29, 2024.

As required under Nasdaq listing standards, a majority of the members of a listed company’s board of directors must qualify as “independent,” as affirmatively determined by the board of directors. In addition, the rules of Nasdaq require that, subject to specified exceptions, each member of a listed company’s audit, compensation and nominating and corporate governance committees be independent. Under the rules of the Nasdaq, a director will only qualify as an “independent director” if, in the opinion of that company’s board of directors, that person does not have a relationship that would interfere with the exercise of independent judgment in carrying out the responsibilities of a director. Compensation Committee members must not have a relationship with us that is material to the director’s ability to be independent from management in connection with the duties of a Compensation Committee member. Additionally, Audit Committee members must also satisfy the independence criteria set forth in Rule 10A-3 under the Exchange Act. To be considered independent for purposes of Rule 10A-3, a member of an audit committee of a listed company may not, other than in his or her capacity as a member of the audit committee of the board of directors or any other board committee, accept, directly or indirectly, any consulting, advisory or other compensatory fee from the listed company or any of its subsidiaries or be an affiliated person of the listed company or any of its subsidiaries. The Board consults with the Company’s counsel to ensure that the Board’s determinations are consistent with relevant securities and other laws and regulations regarding the definition of “independent,” including those set forth in pertinent listing standards of Nasdaq, as in effect from time to time.

Consistent with these considerations, after review of all relevant identified transactions or relationships between each director, or any of his or her family members, and the Company, its senior management and its independent auditors, the Board has affirmatively determined that the following six directors are independent directors within the meaning of the applicable Nasdaq listing standards: Messrs. Aquila, Bay and Gordon and Mses. Freeman, Gonzalez and Tan. In making this determination, the Board found that none of these directors or nominees for director had a material or other disqualifying relationship with the Company.

In making those independence determinations, the Board considered the current and prior relationships that each non-employee director has with our company and all other facts and circumstances the Board deemed relevant in determining their independence, including the beneficial ownership of our capital stock by each non-employee

The Board is currently chaired by Mr. Francis, the Company’s Chief Executive Officer. Ms. Freeman currently serves as our lead independent director.

The Company believes that during this transformational period, it is valuable to have Mr. Francis in the combined positions of, the Company’s Chief Executive Officer, principal executive officer and Board Chairman because of his extensive history with and knowledge of the Company, and this arrangement provides a single, clear chain of command to rapidly execute the Company’s strategic initiatives and business plans. In addition, the Company believes that this combined role better positions Mr. Francis to act as a bridge between management and the Board, facilitating the regular flow of information.

The Board appointed Ms. Freeman as the lead independent director to help reinforce the independence of the Board as a whole. The position of lead independent director has been structured to serve as an effective balance to a combined Chief Executive Officer and Board Chairman. The lead independent director is empowered to, among other duties and responsibilities, approve agendas and meeting schedules for regular Board meetings, preside over Board meetings in the absence of the Chairman, preside over and establish the agendas for meetings of the independent directors, act as liaison between the Chairman and the independent directors, approve information sent to the Board, preside over any portions of Board meetings at which the evaluation or compensation of the principal executive officer is presented or discussed and, as appropriate upon request, act as a liaison to our stockholders. In addition, it is the responsibility of the lead independent director to coordinate between the Board and management with regard to the determination and implementation of responses to any problematic risk management issues. As a result, the Company believes that the lead independent director can help ensure the effective independent functioning of the Board in its oversight responsibilities. In addition, the Company believes that the lead independent director is better positioned to build a consensus among directors and to serve as a conduit between the other independent directors and the Chairman, for example, by facilitating the inclusion on meeting agendas of matters of concern to the independent directors.

Risk is inherent with every business, and we face a number of risks, including strategic, financial, business and operational, cybersecurity, legal and compliance, and reputational. We have designed and implemented processes to manage these risks. Management is responsible for the day-to-day implementation, oversight and management of risks and risk processes our company faces, while the Board, as a whole and assisted by its committees, has responsibility for the oversight of risk management. In its risk oversight role, our Board has the responsibility to satisfy itself that the risk management processes designed and implemented by management are appropriate and functioning as designed.

The Board administers this oversight function directly through the Board as a whole, as well as through various Board committees that address risks inherent in their respective areas of oversight. The Board believes that open communication between management and the Board is essential for effective risk management and oversight. Consistent with this approach, the Board, with the assistance of its committees, regularly reviews our strategic and operational risks in the context of discussions with management, question and answer sessions, and reports from the management team at each of its regular meetings. Directors also have access to management outside of its regular meetings and are free to ask questions and receive information necessary to perform their duties as a director.

In particular, the Board is responsible for monitoring and assessing strategic risk exposure, including a determination of the nature and level of risk appropriate for the Company, and for coordinating with management on decisions relating to any matters that carry potential enterprise-level risks. The Audit Committee has the responsibility to consider and discuss our major financial risk exposures and the steps our management has taken to monitor and control these exposures, including management’s guidelines and policies around quarterly reporting. The Audit Committee is also responsible for monitoring compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, including our Related Person Transaction Policy, in addition to oversight of the performance of our internal audit function. The Audit Committee’s responsibilities also include primary responsibility to help the Board oversee the Company’s enterprise risk assessment and management policies, procedures and practices (including, together with assistance from the Technology Committee, those risks related to information security, cybersecurity and data protection), as

The Board met seven times during 2023. All directors attended 75% or more of the aggregate number of meetings of the Board and of the committees on which they served, held during the portion of the last fiscal year for which they were a director or member.

As required under applicable Nasdaq listing standards, in 2023, the Company’s independent directors met six times in regularly scheduled executive sessions at which only independent directors were present.

The Board established the Audit Committee, the Compensation Committee, the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee and the Technology Committee. The Board adopted a charter for each of the committees, which complies with the applicable requirements of current Nasdaq rules and can be found at our website at ir.weedmaps.com. We intend to comply with future requirements to the extent they will be applicable to us. Copies of the charters for each committee are available on the investor relations portion of our website. The following table provides membership and meeting information for the year ended December 31, 2023 for each of the standing Board committees: