Quiver Quantitative

Risk Factors Dashboard

Once a year, publicly traded companies issue a comprehensive report of their business, called a 10-K. A component mandated in the 10-K is the ‘Risk Factors’ section, where companies disclose any major potential risks that they may face. This dashboard highlights all major changes and additions in new 10K reports, allowing investors to quickly identify new potential risks and opportunities.

Risk Factors - ISPC

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Item 1A. Risk Factors

In analyzing our Company, you should consider carefully the following risk factors, together with all of the other information included in this Annual Report. Factors that could cause or contribute to differences in our actual results include those discussed in the following subsection, as well as those discussed above in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and elsewhere throughout this Annual Report. Each of the following risk factors, either alone or taken together, could adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition, as well as adversely affect the value of an investment in our

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Company. The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks not currently known to us or other factors not perceived by us to present significant risks to our business at this time also may impair our business operations.

Risks Related to Our Business

We have incurred losses since inception and anticipate that we will continue to incur losses for the foreseeable future. We are not currently profitable, and we may never achieve or sustain profitability.

We were founded in 2009 and completed our first commercial sale in 2012. We did not start generating revenues until 2016. We are not profitable and have incurred losses in each period since our inception in 2009. For the year ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, we reported net losses of $10,245,922 and $8,961,815, respectively. We had an accumulated deficit of $48,265,324 as of December 31, 2022.

We expect to continue to incur losses for the foreseeable future, and we expect these losses to increase as we continue to invest in the growth of our business. We may encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays, and other unknown factors that may adversely affect our business. The magnitude of our future net losses will depend, in part, on the rate of future growth of our expenses and our ability to generate and grow revenue. Even if we achieve profitability in a future period, we may not be able to sustain profitability in subsequent periods. Our prior losses and expected future losses have had and will continue to have adverse effects on our stockholders’ equity (deficit) and working capital.

In the future, we may identify material weaknesses in our internal controls over financial reporting that may cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations or result in material misstatements of our financial statements. In particular, these obligations will require substantial attention from our senior management and could divert their attention away from the day-to-day management of our business, which could materially and adversely impact our business operations. If we fail to remediate any material weaknesses or if we otherwise fail to establish and maintain effective control over financial reporting, our ability to accurately and timely report our financial results could be adversely affected.

We are required to comply with the SEC’s rules implementing Sections 302 and 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which requires management to certify financial and other information in our quarterly and annual reports and provide an annual management report on the effectiveness of our controls over financial reporting. Although we are required to disclose changes made in our internal controls and procedures on a quarterly basis, we are not required to make our first annual assessment of our internal controls over financial reporting pursuant to Section 404 until the later of (i) the year following our first annual report required to be filed with the SEC or (ii) the date we are no longer an emerging growth company. This assessment will need to include disclosure of any material weaknesses identified by our management in our internal control over financial reporting, as well as a statement that our independent registered public accounting firm has issued an opinion on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting, provided that our independent registered public accounting firm will not be required to attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting until our first annual report required to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, following the later of the date we are deemed to be an “accelerated filer” or a “large accelerated filer,” each as defined in the Exchange Act, or the date we are no longer an emerging growth company, as defined in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012 (the “JOBS Act”). We could be an emerging growth company for up to five years.

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 financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.

We may identify future material weaknesses in our internal controls over financial reporting or fail to meet the demands that will be placed upon us as a public company, including the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and we may be unable to accurately report our financial results, or report them within the timeframes required by law or stock exchange regulations. We cannot assure that additional material weaknesses will not exist or otherwise be discovered, any of which could adversely affect our reputation, financial condition and results of operations.

We may likely require additional capital in the future and an inability to meet future capital needs could adversely impact our ability to operate.

We require substantial capital to fund our business growth and we will likely need additional capital in the future to fund our operations. In addition to investing in personnel growth commensurate with business growth, we believe we must continue to invest in the development of our iSpecimen Marketplace platform to enhance and improve its performance, functionality, ease of use, and reliability

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to carry out our business strategies. New industry standards, the availability of alternative products, and evolving life science research needs could render our products and services obsolete and/or new third-party marketplace technology may be introduced that makes it easier for our competitors to create their own marketplace platforms. Our success will depend, in part, on our ability to develop new products and services and make corresponding technology enhancements that address the increasingly sophisticated and varied needs of our suppliers and customers and respond to technological advances and emerging industry standards and practices on a cost-effective and timely basis. We cannot be certain that additional financing will be available to us if required on favorable terms or at all. To the extent that we cannot raise capital if needed, we may not be able to continue operations.

We have a relatively short operating history which can lead to difficulty in accurately forecasting future results.

While we had a small amount of revenue beginning in 2012, we did not have any full-time sales and marketing personnel to build our commercial operations until 2016. As a result of our relatively short history of revenue generation, our ability to accurately forecast future results is limited and is impacted by a number of factors, including:

ØOur revenue is transactional and not recurring. Researchers pay us to provide specimens when they have a need for specimens. We do not currently charge our customer or supply chain for access to the iSpecimen Marketplace;
ØOur revenue is significantly concentrated and varies by customer year-over-year. There were two customers that represented approximately 14% and 12% of our revenue in 2022. In 2021, there were no customers that accounted for more than 10% of our revenue;
ØResearcher needs may change over the lifetime of a project, based on the stage of the project. A research customer in one time period may not have a need for specimens again in the next;
ØResearch projects get terminated or suspended for a variety of reasons, including funding issues or unexpected results. Any termination or suspension of a project may cause a corresponding cancellation or delay in purchase orders we have received for specimens;
ØSuppliers may not accurately estimate how long it will take them to fulfill specimen requests, making it more difficult to accurately forecast when we will recognize revenue on these specimen requests; and
ØWe created our first sales team in the fourth quarter of 2019, which we have continued to expand, and therefore we have limited historical selling data per salesperson upon which to generate future revenue forecasts.

Many of these are outside of our control and all of which may change from time to time. Our historical revenue results should not be taken as predictive of future performance. There are many risks that could impact future performance resulting in variations in expected results which could lead to a negative business impact.

Our growth strategy may not prove viable and we may not realize expected results.

Our business strategy is to grow by improving and expanding iSpecimen’s Marketplace platform. This growth is expected to come through: (i) expansion of our platform capabilities to drive increased acquisition of annotated biospecimens through the platform, (ii) further expansion of our customer and supplier base in and outside the United States, and (iii) expansion into new lines of business such as patient recruitment and data licensing. Expansion of our existing business and entry into new lines of business will require a significant investment in technology development, supply development, operations, and marketing and sales. We may not achieve market expansion and acceptance and we may incur problems introducing new solutions and services. We may experience losses related to these investments, which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations.

Our growth strategy involves a number of risks and uncertainties, including:

ØWe may not successfully enter into contracts with healthcare providers to gain access to specimens, subjects, and data on terms favorable to us or at all. This can limit our ability to grow in existing lines of business and expand into new lines of business;

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ØWe may not obtain new customers or may lose existing customers if we cannot offer products and services that they need on a timely basis or at all;
ØWe may fail in the development of our technology and it may not adequately keep pace to support an expansion of our existing line of business or our entry into new lines of businesses;
ØThe market adoption rate of our marketplace technology may be too slow, and we may fail to get our customers and suppliers to transact for products and services using our technology;
ØWe may fail to continue to expand outside of the United States, especially if we are required to comply with laws and regulations that differ from geographies in which we currently operate;
ØWe may fail to gain market acceptance for new products or services; and/or
ØWe may lose to competitors, some of whom may have greater resources than we do. This competition may intensify due to the ongoing consolidation in the biospecimen industry, which may increase our costs to pursue opportunities.

If we fail to properly evaluate and execute existing and new business opportunities properly, we may not achieve anticipated benefits and may incur increased costs. There can be no assurance that we will be able to successfully capitalize on growth opportunities, which may adversely impact our business model, revenues, results of operations, and financial condition.

The continued COVID-19 pandemic could continue to adversely affect our business.

We are subject to the risks arising from the COVID-19 outbreak’s social and economic impacts on the healthcare services industry. In response to this risk, we have put in place additional health and safety protocols. We continue to monitor and revise these protocols as appropriate to address the evolving nature of the pandemic. While we have seen a return to business as usual in our industry, we continue to monitor the future impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Company, which includes such factors such as length of time of the pandemic; the responses of federal, state and local government; the impact of future variants that may emerge; vaccination rates among the population; the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines; the longer-term impact of the pandemic on the economy and consumer behavior; and the effect on our employees, vendors and suppliers. We will continue to monitor and evaluate the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and will work to respond appropriately to the impact of COVID-19 on our business, as well as customers’ and suppliers’ businesses.

International operation expansion could expose us to additional risks which could harm our business, prospects, results of operation, and financial condition.

We operate internationally and expect to expand internationally. For example, we procure specimens from sites outside of the United States and we also distribute samples to organizations located around the world. As of December 31, 2022, we had customers in 21 countries, supply sites in 18 countries, and two international distributors. As of December 31, 2021, we had customers in 17 countries, supply sites in 15 countries, and two international distributors. International expansion exposes us to additional risks, including:

Øchanges in local political, economic, social, and labor conditions, which may adversely affect our business;
Ørisks associated with trade restrictions and foreign import requirements, including the importation and exportation of our solutions, as well as changes in trade, tariffs, restrictions or requirements;
Øheightened risks of unethical, unfair or corrupt business practices, actual or claimed, in certain geographies;
Øfluctuations in currency exchange rates, which may make doing business with us less appealing as our contracts are generally denominated in U.S. dollars;
Øgreater difficulty in enforcing contracts;

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Ølack of brand awareness that can make commercializing our products more difficult and expensive;
Ømanagement communication and integration problems resulting from cultural differences and geographic dispersion;
Øthe uncertainty and limitation of protection for intellectual property rights in some countries;
Øincreased financial accounting and reporting burdens and complexities as a result of being a public company;
Ølack of familiarity with local laws, customs and practices, and laws and business practices favoring local competitors or partners;
Øpotentially different pricing environments, longer payment cycles in some countries, increased credit risk, and higher levels of payment fraud;
Øuncertainty regarding liability for products and services, including uncertainty as a result of local laws and lack of legal precedent;
Ødifferent employee/employer relationships, existence of workers’ councils and labor unions, and other challenges caused by distance, language, and cultural differences, making it harder to do business in certain jurisdictions;
Øcompliance with complex foreign and U.S. laws and regulations applicable to international operations may increase the cost of doing business in international jurisdictions. These numerous and sometimes conflicting laws and regulations include internal control and disclosure rules, data privacy requirements, research ethics and compliance laws, anti-corruption laws, and anti-competition regulations, among others. Violations of these laws and regulations could result in fines and penalties, criminal sanctions against us, our officers, or our employees, prohibitions on the conduct of our business and on our ability to offer our products and services in one or more countries, and could also materially affect our brand, our international expansion efforts, our ability to attract and retain employees, our business, and our operating results; and
Øinstability, disruption or destruction in a significant geographic region, regardless of cause, including war, terrorism, riot, civil insurrection or social unrest; and natural or man-made disasters, including famine, flood, fire, earthquake, storm or disease, including without limitation, the war between Russia and Ukraine which started in February 2022, regions from which we obtain specimen supplies.

The occurrence of any one of these risks could harm our international business and, consequently, our results of operations. Additionally, operating in international markets requires significant management attention and financial resources. We cannot be certain that the investment and additional resources required to operate in other countries will produce desired levels of revenue or profitability.

We, or the third parties who provide services for us, may be adversely affected by external events for which our business continuity plans may not adequately prepare us.

The occurrence of severe weather, natural disasters, health epidemics, acts of war or terrorism, military conflicts such as the war between Russia and Ukraine, and other adverse external events or conditions that impact us or the operations of third parties who provide services for us have the potential to significantly impact our ability to conduct business.The occurrence of severe weather, natural disasters, health epidemics, acts of war or terrorism, military conflicts such as the rising geopolitical tensions between Russia and, and other adverse external events or conditions that impact us or the operations of third parties who provide services for us have the potential to significantly impact our ability to conduct business. Although we have business continuity plans in place, including an emergency succession plan, there is no guarantee that our plans can be successfully implemented. Even if we were to successfully implement our continuity plans, we may incur substantial expenses and there is no guarantee that our business, financial condition, and results of operations will not be materially impacted.

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We rely upon our technology solution for the operation of our business and if our technology platform contains defects or fails to perform as expected, we may need to suspend its availability and divert development resources, and our business and reputation may be harmed.

Technology as complex as ours may contain unknown and undetected errors or performance problems. There could be numerous reasons for performance and quality issues including new and updated features, defects in integrated commercial and open source technologies, outages and disruptions in the cloud infrastructure on which our platform relies, human error or malfeasance, scale constraints, design flaws, and bad actions by external factors including security and performance related incidents. Many serious defects are frequently found during the period immediately following introduction and initial release of new capabilities or enhancements to existing platforms. Although we attempt to resolve errors that we believe would be considered serious by our users before making our platforms available to them, our products are not error-free. If a significant failure occurs that prevents our customers, suppliers, or our Company from using the iSpecimen Marketplace, our operations may be disrupted, and it may be difficult or, in certain cases, impossible for us to continue our business for a period of time until the failure is corrected. Any performance or quality problem could result in lost revenues or delays in user acceptance that would be detrimental to our business and reputation. We may not be able to detect and correct errors before releasing our product commercially. Undetected errors or performance problems in our existing or future products may be discovered in the future and known errors, considered minor by us, may be considered serious by our customers, resulting in a loss of customers and a decrease in our revenues.

Sustainable future revenue growth is dependent upon the development of technology solutions that enable scale and address new markets.

Our iSpecimen Marketplace technology consists of four major functional areas: data ingestion and harmonization, search, workflow management, and administration, compliance and reporting. Each of these functional areas need continual development to both enable our current business to scale and to enable us to enter new markets. Our intention is to focus most of our engineering resources on the development of the iSpecimen Marketplace platform for the foreseeable future. In fiscal year 2022, we incurred $4,449,206 in technology expenses, and capitalized $2,975,686 for internally developed software. In fiscal 2021, we incurred $1,837,882 in technology expenses, and capitalized $1,035,367 for internally developed software. While we are spending, and expect to continue to spend, a significant amount of time and resources on the development of this platform, we cannot provide any assurances of our iSpecimen Marketplace’s short or long-term success or growth. While we believe that the net proceeds from our initial public offering closed in June 2021 and in our private placement offering closed in December 2021 will be sufficient to fund our current operating plans, there is no assurance that the resources being allocated for the platform will be sufficient to complete planned additional capabilities, or that such completion will result in significant revenues or profit for us. If our customers or suppliers do not perceive this platform to be of high value and quality, we may not be able to retain them or acquire new customers or suppliers.

Our platform may become technologically obsolete or commoditized.

We must continue to enhance and improve the performance, functionality, ease of use, and reliability of our iSpecimen Marketplace platform or it may become obsolete or commoditized. New industry standards, the availability of alternative products, and evolving life science research needs could render our products and services obsolete and/or new third-party marketplace technology may be introduced that makes it easier for our competitors to create their own marketplace platforms. Our success will depend, in part, on our ability to develop new products and services that address the increasingly sophisticated and varied needs of our suppliers and customers and respond to technological advances and emerging industry standards and practices on a cost-effective and timely basis. The development of our technology involves significant technical and business risks. We may fail to use new technologies effectively or to adapt our proprietary technology and systems to user requirements or emerging industry standards. If we are unable to adapt to changing market conditions, user requirements, or emerging industry standards, we may not be able to increase our revenue and expand our business. Additionally, if existing or future competitors develop or offer products or services that provide significant performance, price, creative or other advantages over this platform, demand for our services through the iSpecimen Marketplace may decrease and our business, prospects, results of operations and financial condition could be adversely affected.

If our security measures are breached, or if our services are subject to attacks that degrade or deny the ability of users to access our platforms, our platforms and applications may be perceived as not being secure, customers and suppliers may curtail or stop using our services, and we may incur significant legal and financial exposure.

Our platforms and the network infrastructure that are hosted by third-party providers involve the storage and transmission of healthcare data as well as proprietary information about organizations and programs, and security breaches could expose us to a risk of loss of this

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information, litigation, and potential liability. Our security measures may be breached due to the actions of outside parties, employee error, malfeasance, security flaws in the third party hosting service that we rely upon, or any number of other reasons and, as a result, an unauthorized party may obtain access to our suppliers’ or customers’ data. Although we have never had any breach of data in our third-party provider’s environment, any future breach or unauthorized access could result in significant legal and financial exposure, damage to our reputation, and a loss of confidence in the security of our platforms and applications that could potentially have an adverse effect on our business. Because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access, disable or degrade service, or sabotage systems change frequently and often are not recognized until launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures on a timely basis. If an actual or perceived breach of our security occurs, the market perception of the effectiveness of our security measures could be harmed and we could lose suppliers and customers and we may have difficulty obtaining merchant processors or insurance coverage essential for our operations.

We, and the third-party providers upon which we rely, have experienced, and may in the future experience, cybersecurity threats, including threats or attempts to disrupt our information technology infrastructure and unauthorized attempts to gain access to sensitive or confidential information.24 Table of ContentsWe, and the third-party providers upon which we rely, have experienced, and may in the future experience, cybersecurity threats, including threats or attempts to disrupt our information technology infrastructure and unauthorized attempts to gain access to sensitive or confidential information. Our and our third-party vendors’ technology systems may be damaged or compromised by malicious events, such as cyberattacks (including computer viruses, malicious and destructive code, phishing attacks, and denial of service attacks), physical or electronic security breaches, natural disasters, fire, power loss, telecommunications failures, personnel misconduct, and human error. Such attacks or security breaches may be perpetrated by internal bad actors, such as employees or contractors, or by third parties (including traditional computer hackers, persons involved with organized crime, or foreign state or foreign state-supported actors). Cybersecurity threats can employ a wide variety of methods and techniques, which may include the use of social engineering techniques, are constantly evolving, and have become increasingly complex and sophisticated; all of which increase the difficulty of detecting and successfully defending against them. Furthermore, because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access or sabotage systems change frequently and generally are not identified until after they are launched against a target, we and our third-party providers may be unable to anticipate these techniques or implement adequate preventative measures. Although prior cyberattacks directed at us have not had a material impact on our financial results, and we are continuing to bolster our threat detection and mitigation processes and procedures, we cannot guarantee that future cyberattacks, if successful, will not have a material impact on our business or financial results. While we have security measures in place to protect our information and our customers’ information and to prevent data loss and other security breaches, there can be no assurance that in the future we will be able to anticipate or prevent security breaches or unauthorized access of our information technology systems or the information technology systems of the third-party providers upon which we rely. Despite our implementation of network security measures and internal information security policies, data stored on personnel computer systems is also vulnerable to similar security breaches, unauthorized tampering or human error.

Many governments have enacted laws requiring companies to provide notice of data security incidents involving certain types of data, including personal data. If an actual or perceived breach of security measures, unauthorized access to our system or the systems of the third-party providers that we rely upon, or any other cybersecurity threat occurs, we may face direct or indirect liability, costs, or damages, contract termination, our reputation in the industry and with current and potential customers may be compromised, our ability to attract new customers could be negatively affected, and our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

We maintain cybersecurity insurance and other types of insurance, subject to applicable deductibles and policy limits, but our insurance may not be sufficient to cover all costs associated with a potential data security incident. We also cannot be sure that our existing general liability insurance coverage and coverage for cyber liability or errors or omissions will continue to be available on acceptable terms or will be available in sufficient amounts to cover one or more large claims or that the 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 co-insurance requirements, could harm our financial condition.

Changes in demand for our products and services could affect profitability.

We are fundamentally a matchmaking service provider between researchers who have needs for access to subjects, samples, and data, and healthcare providers and other organizations that have them. Any change that either reduces the demand for our services or changes the composition of the demand could adversely impact our financial results.

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Overall customer demand could change for many reasons outside of our control, reducing demand or making it more difficult to match up to our supply chain’s capabilities. These reasons include:

Øgeneral economic downturn that impacts the research and development budgets of biopharma;
Øchanges in the disease landscape, like COVID-19, that affect the types of products and services needed;
Øchanges in drugs and therapies and the desire to study subjects on these drugs and therapies;
Øchanges in diagnostic tests performed (like genomic sequencing) that drive the need for subjects and samples with these new or novel test results;
Øchanges in data requirements, such as the need to know specific outcomes data;
Øoverall changes in biomarker research, such as emerging liquid biopsy or cell therapy research, that drives the need for different products and services;
Øleadership changes within our customers resulting in loss of sponsorship;
Ønew (alternative) products introduced by competitors and/or developed by customers, which may have potential to reduce or replace the need for certain types of biospecimens that we provide;
Øcompetitive forces, which make it easier for customers to find products and services elsewhere; and/or
Øcancellation or delay of research programs, due to funding issues or preliminary research result issues.

If we fail to address these factors in a timely manner or at all, our financial results could be adversely affected.

Additionally, overall customer demand could decrease if we fail to:

Øprovide high quality products and services;
Øprovide products and services at a competitive price;
Ødeliver products and services in a reasonable amount of time;
Øoffer high levels of customer service;
Øoffer adjacent services that researchers want to procure along with our existing products and services;
Øadequately invest in sales and marketing programs and teams to drive demand or operational support to fulfill requests;
Ødevelop a large and diverse supply network to satisfy demand; or
Øprovide a technology solution that simplifies the biospecimen procurement process for researchers and specimen providers alike.

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Challenges or unanticipated costs in establishing the sales, marketing, and distribution capabilities necessary to successfully commercialize our products globally could affect profitability.

To generate revenue, we need to expand our sales, marketing, and distribution capabilities to support our operations in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific and proceeds raised in our initial public and in our private placement offering closed in December 2021 has allowed to enhance our sales, marketing, and distribution capabilities. It may be expensive and difficult for us to develop a global sales and marketing presence and therefore, we will likely seek distributors to the life sciences industry to market and sell some of our products and services outside of the United States. We have started the process of identifying potential distributors to market and sell our products and services to key geographic areas outside the United States. We may not be able to provide adequate compensation to these distributors for them to spend time and resources marketing and selling our products and some of our products may be too complex for them to adequately represent them. In addition, any third-party distributors with whom we work may not successfully sell our products and services, thereby exposing us to potential expenses in exiting such distribution agreements. We, and any distributors, must also market our services in compliance with federal, state, local and international laws relating to the provision of incentives and inducements. Violation of these laws can result in substantial penalties.

We incur credit risk with our customers, and we may provide them with products and services for which we do not get paid.26 Table of ContentsWe incur credit risk with our customers, and we may provide them with products and services for which we do not get paid.

Our customers generally place orders for our products and services using a purchase order and we invoice our customers after they have received the products or services from us. During this procurement process, we become obligated to pay our suppliers for any products or services we procure from them on behalf of our customers regardless of whether our customers ultimately pay us for these products or services. Therefore, we bear the responsibility for the credit risk of our customers. We mitigate this credit risk through procedures that evaluate the creditworthiness of customers prior to accepting a purchase order from them. However, our procedures may not successfully identify all those who ultimately fail to pay us for our products and services and any non-payments may negatively impact our revenues, results of operations, and financial condition.

Our customer mix increases the risk of customers not paying our invoices.

We derive, and believe that we may continue to derive, a significant portion of our revenues from privately held, investor-backed biopharma companies that are not profitable and have little operating history. These organizations may be at a higher risk of not paying for provided products and services on a timely basis or at all. If these companies fail to pay our invoices, our profitability will be adversely impacted.

We rely upon relatively few customers for a significant portion of revenue and do not have a recurring revenue business model. A loss of large customers could affect our ability to operate.

We have derived, and believe that we may continue to derive, a significant portion of our revenue from a limited number of customers that vary each year. While for the year ended December 31, 2022, two customers represented 14% and 12% of the Company’s revenues, for the year ended December 31, 2021, no customer represented more than 10% of our revenue. While for the year ended December 31, 2021, no customer represented greater than 10% of the Company’s revenues for the year ended December 31, 2020, our two largest customers accounted for 11% and 10% of our revenue. We do not have a recurring revenue model and our customers may buy less of our products or services depending on their research and development cycles, internal budget cycles, product and service requirements, and competitive offerings. A major customer in one year may not purchase any of our products or services in another year, which may adversely affect our financial performance.

Customers and customer prospects may be averse to using a self-service marketplace to procure specimens and may continue to require iSpecimen personnel in the procurement process, impacting our scalability and profitability.

The iSpecimen Marketplace functions as a lead generation system to capture customer requests for specimens and as a workflow engine to allow customers, suppliers, and our Company to track and manage specimen requests. Currently, it does not fully support self-service eCommerce because key capabilities required to satisfy these transactions across all of our product lines, such as a pricing engine and patient-level search, have yet to be incorporated. Therefore, currently all customer requests for specimens require assistance from iSpecimen sales personnel. At a minimum, our sales personnel are involved in the generation of customer quotes, but they often also act in a consulting role to help develop specimen request specifications on more complex projects or to perform searches on the customer or customer prospect’s behalf.

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While we continue to invest in capabilities to support customer self-service in the iSpecimen Marketplace, and will be utilizing the proceeds of our initial public and in our private placement offering closed in December 2021 for this effort, we do not know when we will consider these capabilities to be fully developed. Additionally, we do not know if researchers will utilize the iSpecimen Marketplace to transact without the intervention of iSpecimen personnel which could limit our scalability. We may continue to invest in software which may never provide a return on its investment and diverts resources from the development of software that drives other parts of our procurement workflow.

Our business may be materially and adversely impacted by the reduction, delay or cancellation of orders from our customers.

Our contracts with our customers generally allow them to reduce, delay, or cancel the unfulfilled portion of their specimen order with a two-week notice. Customers may reduce, delay, or cancel their unfulfilled orders due to a variety of reasons including they make changes to project requirements and the open request no longer meets their needs; their budgets change or projects get cancelled; they place orders with multiple specimen providers and cancel open orders when they have procured sufficient quantity of samples across all their sources; or we are unable to fulfill the entire order before the project deadline. For orders received and closed (either fully fulfilled, reduced, or cancelled) for 2022 and 2021, we fulfilled approximately 73.0% and 73.5%, respectively, of the total value of these orders. Our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows may be materially and adversely impacted by the reduction, delay or cancellation of orders.

We have entered into contracts with U.S. government agencies and contractors which subjects us to federal contract and audit risks.

We entered into contracts with U.S. government agencies and contractors, representing approximately 8.3% and 1.6% of our total revenue for 2022 and 2021, respectively, that may contain unfavorable termination provisions and are subject to audit and modification by the government at its sole discretion, which subjects us to additional risks. These risks include the ability of the U.S. government to unilaterally:

Øsuspend or prevent us for a set period of time from receiving new contracts or extending existing contracts;
Øterminate our existing contracts;
Øreduce the scope and value of our existing contracts;
Øaudit and object to our contract-related costs and fees, including allocated indirect costs; and
Øchange certain terms and conditions in our contracts.

The U.S. government may terminate any of its contracts with us either for its convenience or if we default by failing to perform in accordance with the contract schedule and terms. Termination for convenience provisions may enable us to recover only our costs incurred or committed, and settlement expenses and profit on the work completed prior to termination. Termination for default provisions may not permit these recoveries and make us liable for excess costs incurred by the U.S. government in procuring undelivered items from another source.

As a U.S. government contractor and subcontractor, we may become subject to periodic audits and reviews. Based on the results of these audits, the U.S. government may adjust our contract-related costs and fees, including allocated indirect costs. As part of any such audit or review, the U.S. government may review the adequacy of, and our compliance with, our internal control systems and policies, including those relating to our purchasing, property, compensation, and/or management information systems. In addition, if an audit or review uncovers any improper or illegal activity, we may be subject to civil and criminal penalties and administrative sanctions, including termination of our contracts, forfeiture of profits, suspension of payments, fines and suspension or prohibition from doing business with the U.S. government.

We could also suffer serious harm to our reputation if allegations of impropriety were made against us. Although we have not had any government audits and reviews to date, future audits and reviews could cause adverse effects.

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Sustainable future revenue growth is dependent on growth in the capabilities of our supply network which we may not be able to achieve.

Our business is fundamentally a match-making business between healthcare providers who have access to subjects, samples, and data and life science researchers who need them. Currently, we receive more requests for our products and services than we have access to in our supply network and we are therefore supply constrained. Although we have allocated proceeds of our initial public offering closed in June 2021 and our private placement offering closed in December 2021 to supply development and commensurately grow our supply network capabilities to keep pace with demand, this supply-demand imbalance could increase in the future if we do not continue or increase our investment in this area.

Additionally, demand for specimens we receive is becoming more specific, requiring access to a greater population of subjects, samples, and data to find those that meet a researcher’s inclusion and exclusion criteria. It takes a larger network of subjects, samples, and data to access a wide enough population of subjects to meet a growing number of requests with more stringent criteria. Delays, difficulties, or unanticipated costs in developing our supply network capabilities necessary to successfully procure products and services could adversely affect revenue and profitability.

Sustainable future revenue growth is dependent upon gaining access to more healthcare data from our supply network and a failure to obtain this data may adversely affect our growth.28 Table of ContentsSustainable future revenue growth is dependent upon gaining access to more healthcare data from our supply network and a failure to obtain this data may adversely affect our growth.

Key to our growth strategy is the accessibility and availability of deep medical record data from our healthcare provider supply sites. This data is used to automate the process of matching researchers to subjects, samples, and data, and also used to automate the procurement workflow. Currently, we have gained access to laboratory data to support the distribution of clinical lab specimens as well as biorepository data to support the distribution of banked specimens. However, we have not gained access to deeper medical record data sets from a broad set of healthcare providers to support custom specimen collections, clinical trial recruitment, or data licensing. Should we fail in our ability to access deeper healthcare data, we may not be able to effectively compete in our served markets or grow as anticipated and our business may suffer.

The adoption cycle of our supply network tends to be very lengthy, which may adversely affect our ability to scale rapidly and increase revenues.

The business development cycle for the adoption of our technology solution at healthcare provider supply partners can take up to 18 months or more from initial contact with the prospect through execution of a contract. We may spend significant resources to attempt to secure a new supply partner without successfully engaging the supply partner. Even if we are successful in securing a new supply partner, once a contract is executed, implementation of our technology in the supply partner’s environment can take another several months to a year or more. Because of the lengthy adoption cycle, we may fail to expand our supply network quickly enough to reach our revenue growth targets.

Potential adverse effect from changes in the healthcare industry, including consolidations and regulatory changes, could affect access to subjects, samples, and data and affect our growth.

Changing healthcare-related legislation and regulation may impact the fiscal stability and sustainability of our supply partners. Additionally, many healthcare providers are consolidating to create larger healthcare systems and/or integrated healthcare delivery systems. These changes can divert resources at our healthcare provider supply sites away from the evaluation or implementation of the iSpecimen solution to the adoption of new infrastructure, policies, and procedures to support the changes, thereby extending their timeline to adopt the iSpecimen solution. We cannot predict whether or when future healthcare reform initiatives at the international, federal, or state level, consolidations, or other initiatives affecting healthcare providers’ businesses will be proposed, enacted, or implemented or what impact those initiatives may have on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

Our supply chain may not provide adequate resources to quickly respond to requests for specimens and delays in the procurement process can affect our reputation, revenue, and profitability.

Many of the healthcare providers in our supply network are not-for-profit organizations whose primary business is to provide clinical care to patients. Supporting biospecimen research may be an adjunct activity for them. These organizations may lack adequate resources

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to quickly respond to our requests for specimens now and into the future. Should we and our customers experience slow turnaround times on specimen requests, our reputation may be damaged and there may be an adverse impact on our revenue and profitability.

We do not control the end-to-end quality of specimens and data collected in our supply chain and quality issues can affect our reputation, revenue, and profitability.

We rely upon our supply sites and their quality control processes to provide us with products and services that meet order specifications. In certain situations, products are shipped directly from the supply sites to our customers. When we receive products from our supply sites, we perform a visual inspection of the products, but we do not perform an in-depth quality control check to ensure that products meet all specifications.

Instead, we rely upon our customers to perform quality checks themselves and offer refunds or replacements for products that do not meet specification. We receive products from supply sites and ship them to our customers. In 2022, the percent of specimens that met specifications was 99% for clinical remnant specimens, 99% for banked research specimens and 99% for custom research collections. In 2021, the percent of specimens that met specifications was 98% for clinical remnant specimens, 99% for banked research specimens and 97% for custom research collections. In 2021, the percent of specimens that met specifications was 98% for clinical remnant specimens, 99% for banked research specimens and 97% for custom research collections. Refunds and replacements for our products that did not meet specifications for 2022 were nominal. Any issues with quality from our supply sites can adversely affect our reputation, revenue, and profitability.

Reliance on relatively few supply partners for significant supplies and services could affect our ability to operate and grow.29 Table of ContentsReliance on relatively few supply partners for significant supplies and services could affect our ability to operate and grow.

We have derived, and believe that we may continue to derive, a significant portion of our revenues from products we procure from a limited number of supply sites. For the year ended December 31, 2022, there were two suppliers who each accounted for 12% of our total cost of revenue and two other suppliers who, together, accounted for an additional 16% of our total cost of revenue. For the year ended December 31, 2021, there were two suppliers who each accounted for 11% of our total cost of revenue and two other suppliers who, together, accounted for an additional 10% of our total cost of revenue. For the year ended December 31, 2021, there were two suppliers who each accounted for 11% of our total cost of revenue and two other suppliers who, together, accounted for an additional 20% of our total cost of revenue. Any change in the ability of a major supply site to provide us with products and services (such as financial health of the supply site, key leadership, research focus, information technology, competitive demand for specimens from third-parties, pricing structures, contract status and changes in the general economy) may adversely affect our financial performance.

Our supply partners’ inventories may become obsolete, which could have a material adverse effect upon our ability to generate revenue.

During the year ended December 31, 2022, approximately 56% of our revenue was derived from specimens that were procured from our supply partners’ existing sample inventories in their biobanks. These inventories may become obsolete due to changes in regulatory requirements such as a requirement for new consent form disclosures; changes in researcher requirements for the types of specimens, subjects, and data they need for their studies; and/or general degradation in the quality of stored specimens. Any change in regulations, researcher needs, or specimen quality could render our supply partners’ inventories obsolete and may adversely affect our financial performance.

Specimen collection from human subjects, including the possible occurrence of adverse events during or after tissue collection, could provide exposure to claims and litigation.

There are inherent risks associated with collecting specimens from human subjects. Although specimen collections are completed by certified staff according to established industry standards, specimen donors vary in their ability to tolerate specimen collection protocols and such donors may potentially have an adverse health reaction either during or following a specimen collection. Research subjects or their legally authorized representative may file claims related to a specimen collection and these claims could result in litigation that could be expensive, and time consuming to defend or result in judgements that exceed the resources of the Company and its insurance coverage.

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We procure specimens and data from organizations outside of the U.S. and as such, we rely upon these organizations to collect and distribute specimens and data in accordance with their local regulations as well as our contractual requirements. A failure by our sites to comply with both applicable regulations and our contractual requirements could introduce us to compliance risk.

Some of the organizations from which we procure specimens and data reside outside of the U.S. in jurisdictions that may have data protection rules, human research protection rules, and other pertinent rules that relate to the collection and distribution of specimens and data that vary from U.S. regulations. We, as an organization are not knowledgeable about all the pertinent rules and regulations of all of the jurisdictions in which these sites operate, and therefore we rely upon our contractual relationships with supply sites to ensure that they have legal responsibility for compliance with their own jurisdiction-specific regulations.

Should any site fail to comply with the applicable regulations, we may suffer reputational risks if we have distributed specimens and data from that site. Additionally, any compliance failure on the part of our supply sites that impacts our research customers’ ability to utilize specimens and data they previously obtained from us, as well as utilize any research results, they derived from these specimens and data, may subject us to claims by these customers. These claims could result in litigation that could be expensive to defend or result in judgements that exceed our resources and our insurance coverage. Any such litigations and judgement could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

We may experience delays or interruption in the shipments of our specimens due to factors outside of our control, and such disruption could lead to lost revenue and customer satisfaction issues.

We distribute biological specimens to customers around the world. These specimens need to be delivered over a range of temperatures from ambient to cryogenic and delivery timeframes that can be as quick as hours. We rely on third-party shipping materials (such as thermal containers) as well as shipping services (such as FedEx) to transport specimens to our customers. Shipping materials may be defective and third-party shipping services, including international shipping services, could become disrupted by adverse weather conditions, natural disasters, military conflicts, flight cancellations, ground logistics issues, customs delays, and other service interruptions. Shipping materials may be defective and third-party shipping services, including international shipping services, could become disrupted by adverse weather 30 Table of Contentsconditions, natural disasters, military conflicts, flight cancellations, ground logistics issues, customs delays, and other service interruptions. Any defect in our shipping materials or delays in shipping service times could cause damage to these specimens and render them unusable by our customers. If we are unable to deliver our specimens in a timely matter and without damage, our revenue could be negatively impacted and our reputation with our customers could suffer, resulting in material harm to our business.

The Company’s business was negatively impacted during the first half of 2022 by the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. At the start of the war, the Company had approximately $1 million of purchase orders that were slated to be fulfilled by the Company’s supply network in Ukraine and Russia. This supply network shut down quickly at the start of the war. Ukrainian suppliers were disabled due to war conditions and evacuations and some of the Company’s Russian suppliers were disabled by sanctions. While the Company mobilized to shift these purchase orders to other suppliers in the network, the process of getting specimen collections from other supply sites took time, which caused a delay in the fulfillment of such purchase orders.

As of December 31, 2022, the Company’s supply sites in Russia that had not been under sanctions were now accessible and the Company’s supply sites in Ukraine had mostly reopened. However, due to the uncertainty caused by the ongoing war, Ukraine suppliers may again become inaccessible to the Company. Therefore, as long as the uncertainty continues, the Company does not use them as sole specimen sources at a purchase order level. Alternate suppliers do not have the same favorable unit economics or specimen collection rates. The short and long-term implications of the war are difficult to predict at thi