Appian : 2024 Annual Report

Published: 2025-04-29 13:31:10 ET APPN

2024 Annual Report

Not long ago I met a business leader who told me his firm had two top priorities for 2025, (1) efficiency and (2) AI. It's a criticism of the AI conversation that after two years of intensive discussion, people still imagine AI is for something other than efficiency. Today at least, AI isn't for seeing around corners, leaps of creativity, or out-thinking humans. It's for doing regular jobs with superhuman efficiency.

In this way, Appian clients already see major efficiency gains using AI.

For many years Appian's platform shipped with digital workers like Robotic Process Automation and complex business rulesets. These digital workers are useful, but there's never been a digital worker like an AI agent, which multiplies the impact of our digital worker suite. We now offer more value than ever before.

We believe in bringing AI to work. That means finding the places where the most intensive, valuable, high-volume work happens and deploying AI directly into that process. (What else could justify the investment our economy is making in AI?) These jobs are done by teams of workers in multi-step processes. Our process platform makes us uniquely able to deploy AI into the heart of such major efforts.

This will be the year when AI success is judged by results not noise. Most of Appian's customer base is already using AI (in production or development). We make AI easy to initiate and immediately valuable.

Appian undertook a major efficiency effort of its own two years ago. We moved from a substantial adjusted EBITDA loss in '23 to a substantial and growing adjusted EBITDA gain in '24. Despite our improved financials, we remain a growth company. Our internal bonuses and targets prioritize growth. We believe our growth potential is higher now than it was before we began the initiative.

There's strong synergy between AI and process. AI is more powerful when deployed in the context of a process. Process gives AI a goal to work towards, a team of co-workers, a flow of work, guardrails, exception handling, human oversight, and escalation paths. Our process platform also gives AI access to data across the enterprise, through our patented data fabric. And we monitor AI with process mining, allowing users to understand, train and improve their AI agents.

Appian is a process platform designed for mission-critical processes. We work with 8 of the 10 largest non-Chinese banks, 8 of the 10 largest pharmaceutical companies, and all 15 US cabinet-level agencies. We earn the trust of our clients with great technology and experiences, and we're well positioned to help them gain value from AI.

Process is where work happens -- and it's time to bring AI to work.

(Mark One)

☒ ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024 OR

TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the transition period from to

Commission File Number: 001-38098

(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in its Charter)

Delaware 54-1956084

(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization) (I.R.S. Employer Identification No.)

7950 Jones Branch Drive

McLean, VA 22102

(Address of principal executive offices) (Zip Code) Registrant's telephone number, including area code: (703) 442-8844

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

Title of each class Trading symbol Name of each exchange on which registered Class A Common Stock APPN The Nasdaq Global Market

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

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

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

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

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

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

Large accelerated filer

☒

Accelerated filer

☐

Non-accelerated filer

☐

Smaller reporting company

☐

Emerging growth company

☐

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

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

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

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

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

As of June 30, 2024, the aggregate market value of the registrant's voting Class A common stock and Class B common stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant was $909.8 million and $63.8 million, respectively, based on a closing price of $30.86 per share of the registrant's Class A common stock as reported on the Nasdaq Global Market on June 30, 2024. For purposes of this computation, all officers, directors, and 10% beneficial owners of the registrant are deemed to be affiliates. Such determination should not be deemed to be an admission that such officers, directors, or 10% beneficial owners are, in fact, affiliates of the registrant.

As of February 17, 2025, there were 42,957,026 shares of our Class A common stock and 31,088,085 shares of our Class B common stock, each with a par value of $0.0001 per share, outstanding.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Portions of the registrant's definitive Proxy Statement for its 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission pursuant to Regulation 14A not later than 120 days after the end of the fiscal year covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K are incorporated by reference in Part III, Items 10-14 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

PART I.

Item 1.

Business

4

Item 1A.

Risk Factors

13

Item 1B.

Unresolved Staff Comments

40

Item 1C.

Cybersecurity

40

Item 2.

Properties

40

Item 3.

Legal Proceedings

41

Item 4.

Mine Safety Disclosures

41

PART II.

Item 5.

Market for Registrant's Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters, and Issuer Purchases of

42

Item 6.

[Reserved]

44

Item 7.

Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

45

Item 7A.

Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk

63

Item 8.

Financial Statements and Supplementary Data

65

Item 9.

Changes In and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure

102

Item 9A.

Controls and Procedures

102

Item 9B.

Other Information

103

Item 9C.

Disclosure Regarding Foreign Jurisdictions that Prevent Inspections

103

PART III.

Item 10.

Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance

104

Item 11.

Executive Compensation

104

Item 12.

Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder

104

Item 13.

Certain Relationships and Related Transactions and Director Independence

104

Item 14.

Principal Accountant Fees and Services

104

PART IV.

Item 15.

Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules

105

Item 16.

Form 10-K Summary

109

Signatures

110

Equity Securities

Matters

3

Disclaimer

Appian Corporation published this content on April 29, 2025, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on April 29, 2025 at 17:30 UTC.