Unity Software (U) 8-KUnity Announces Third Quarter 2020 Financial Results

Unity is providing the following guidance for the fourth quarter and year ending December 31, 2020.

Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to Unity’s financial results as determined in accordance with GAAP are included at the end of this press release following the accompanying financial data. For a description of these non-GAAP financial measures, including the reasons management uses each measure, please see the section of the tables titled “About Non-GAAP Financial Measures.”

This press release contains “forward-looking statements,” as that term is defined under federal securities laws, including, but not limited to, statements regarding Unity’s fourth quarter and full year 2020 outlook, strategies, business plans, priorities and objectives, potential market and growth opportunities; competitive position, product strategies and future product and platform features, technological or market trends and industry environment. The words “believe,” “may,” “will,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “expect,” “seek,” “plan,” “project,” “looking ahead,” “look to,” “move into,” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. If the risks materialize or assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. Risks include, but are not limited to: (i) the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on our business, as well as our customers, prospects, partners, and service providers; (ii) our future profitability and timing for achievement of profitability; (iii) our ability to retain existing customers and expand the use of our platform; (iv) our ability to further expand into new industries and attract new customers; (v) the impact of any changes of terms of service, policies or technical requirements from operating system platform providers or application stores which may result in changes to our or our customers’ business practices; (vi) our ability to maintain favorable relationships with hardware, operating system, device, game console and other technology providers; (vii) our ability to compete effectively in the markets in which we participate; (viii) breaches in our security measures, unauthorized access to our platform, our data, or our customers’ or other users’ personal data; (ix) our ability to manage growth effectively; and (x) the rapidly changing and increasingly stringent laws, contractual obligations and industry standards that relate to privacy, data security and the protection of children. Further information on these and additional risks that could affect Unity’s results is included in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including our final prospectus filed with the SEC on September 18, 2020, and our future reports that we may file with the SEC from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. Unity assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.

Any unreleased services, features, or functions referenced in this document, our website, or other press releases or public statements that are not currently available are subject to change at Unity’s discretion and may not be delivered as planned or at all. Customers who purchase Unity services should make their purchase decisions based upon services, features, and functions that are currently available.

To supplement our consolidated financial statements prepared and presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States, or GAAP, we use certain non-GAAP performance financial measures, as described below, to evaluate our ongoing operations and for internal planning and forecasting purposes. We believe the following non-GAAP measures are useful in evaluating our operating performance. We are presenting these non-GAAP financial measures because we believe, when taken collectively, they may be helpful to investors because they provide consistency and comparability with past financial performance.

However, non-GAAP financial measures have limitations in their usefulness to investors because they have no standardized meaning prescribed by GAAP and are not prepared under any comprehensive set of accounting rules or principles. In addition, other companies, including companies in our industry, may calculate similarly-titled non-GAAP financial measures differently or may use other measures to evaluate their performance, all of which could reduce the usefulness of our non-GAAP financial measures as tools for comparison. As a result, our non-GAAP financial measures are presented for supplemental informational purposes only and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for our consolidated financial statements presented in accordance with GAAP.

We define non-GAAP gross profit as gross profit excluding stock-based compensation expense and employer tax related to employee stock transactions. We define non-GAAP loss from operations as loss from operations excluding stock-based compensation expense, employer tax related to employee stock transactions, amortization of acquired intangible assets, and non-cash charitable contribution expense. We use non-GAAP gross profit and non-GAAP loss from operations in conjunction with traditional GAAP measures to evaluate our financial performance. We believe that non-GAAP gross profit and non-GAAP loss from operations provides our management and investors consistency and comparability with our past financial performance and facilitates period-to-period comparisons of operations, as these metrics exclude stock-based compensation expense, employer tax related to employee stock transactions, amortization of acquired intangible assets, and non-cash charitable contribution expense, which we do not consider to be indicative of our overall operating performance.

Non-GAAP gross profit and non-GAAP loss from operations have limitations as analytical tools, and you should not consider them in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under GAAP. Some of these limitations are:

We monitor the following key metrics to help us evaluate the health of our business, identify trends affecting our growth, formulate goals and objectives, and make strategic decisions.

We focus on the number of customers that generated more than $100,000 of revenue in the trailing 12 months, as this segment of our customer base represents the majority of our revenue and revenue growth. We define a customer as an individual or entity that generated revenue during the measurement period. A single organization with multiple divisions, segments, or subsidiaries is generally counted as a single customer, even though we may enter into commercial agreements with multiple parties within that organization.

We track our performance by measuring our dollar-based net expansion rate, which compares our Create and Operate Solutions revenue from the same set of customers across comparable periods, calculated on a trailing 12-month basis. Our dollar-based net expansion rate as of a period end is calculated as current period revenue divided by prior period revenue. Prior period revenue is the trailing 12-month revenue measured as of such prior period end and includes revenue from all customers that contributed revenue during such trailing 12-month period. Current period revenue is the trailing 12-month revenue from these same customers as of the current period end. Our dollar-based net expansion rate includes the effect of any customer renewals, expansion, contraction, and churn but excludes revenue from new customers in the current period.