ZS

We have incurred net losses in all annual periods since our inception, and we expect we will continue to incur net losses for the foreseeable future. We experienced net losses of $41.5 million, $57.7 million and $202.3 million for fiscal 2025, fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2023, respectively. As of October January 31, 2025, 2026, we had an accumulated deficit of $1,201.2 $1,235.5 million. Because the market for our cloud platform is rapidly evolving and cloud-based security solutions have not yet reached widespread adoption, it is difficult for us to predict our future results of operations. We expect our operating expenses to increase significantly over the next several years as we continue to hire additional personnel, particularly in research and development and sales and marketing, expand our operations and infrastructure, both domestically and internationally, and continue to develop our platform. If we fail to increase our revenue to offset the increases in our operating expenses, we may not achieve or sustain profitability in the future.

Cloud security technologies are still evolving, and it remains difficult to predict customer demand and adoption rates for our solutions. We believe that our cloud platform offers superior protection to our customers, who are moving their applications and data to the cloud and embracing AI applications and agents. We also believe that our cloud platform represents a major shift from on-premises appliance-based security solutions. While cloud-based security solutions have seen increased adoption, traditional on-premises security appliances continue to be entrenched in the infrastructure of many of our potential customers, particularly large enterprises, because of their prior investment in and the familiarity of their IT personnel with on-premises appliance-based solutions. As a result, our sales process often involves extensive efforts to educate our customers on the benefits and capabilities of our cloud platform, particularly as we continue to pursue customer relationships with large organizations. Even with these efforts, we cannot predict long-term market acceptance of our cloud platform, or the adoption of competing products, services or technologies. If we fail to achieve broad market acceptance of our cloud platform or are unable to keep pace with industry changes, particularly as a result of artificial intelligence, our ability to grow our business and our operating results will be materially and adversely affected.

In order for us to maintain or improve our results of operations, it is important that our customers renew their subscriptions for our services when existing contract terms expire, and that we expand our commercial relationships with our existing customers. Our customers have no obligation to renew their subscriptions for our services after the expiration of their contractual subscription period, which is typically one to three years, and in the normal course of business, some customers have elected not to renew. In addition, in certain cases, including under the new EU Data Act, customers may cancel their subscriptions without cause either at any time or upon advance written notice (commonly ranging from 30 days to 60 days), typically subject to an early termination penalty for unused services. In addition, our customers may renew for fewer users, elect not to renew non-user based services, renew for shorter contract lengths or switch to a lower-cost product suite. If our customers do not renew their subscription services, we could incur impairment losses related to our deferred contract acquisition costs. It is difficult to accurately predict long-term customer retention because of our varied customer base and given the length of our subscription contracts. Our customer retention and expansion may decline or fluctuate as a result of a number of factors, including our customers’ satisfaction with our services, our prices and pricing plans, our customers’ spending levels, decreases in the number of services purchased and/or the users to which our customers deploy our solutions, new laws and regulations impacting service contract terms, mergers and acquisitions involving our customers, competition and deteriorating or uncertain general economic conditions, which may result in reductions in IT budgets and lower employee headcounts.

We have experienced rapid growth in revenue, operations and employee headcount in recent periods. In addition, the number of customers, users users, services and internet traffic on our cloud platform has increased rapidly in recent years, and we anticipate that the increasing adoption and deployment of AI technologies by our customers may result in significant increases in traffic on and usage on of our platform. Our growth may not be sustainable and may not be sufficient to achieve and sustain profitability, as we also expect our costs to increase in future periods as we expand our operations and significantly increase our headcount. In addition, we expect our recent revenue growth rates will decline in the future as the size of our revenue base increases. As a result, we believe that historical comparisons of our revenue may not be meaningful and should not be relied upon as an indication of future performance. Accordingly, you should not rely on our revenue and other growth for any prior quarter or fiscal year as an indication of our future revenue or revenue growth.

In addition, we believe that our corporate culture has been a contributor to our success, which we believe fosters innovation, teamwork and an emphasis on customer-focused results. We also believe that our culture creates an environment that drives and perpetuates our strategy and cost-effective distribution approach. In the past we have, and in the future we may, restructure or reduce our workforce to align people, roles and projects to our strategic priorities. Any restructuring, reduction or realignment in the workforce has the potential to negatively impact employee morale or make it more difficult to attract and retain talent. As we continue to grow, we may find it difficult to maintain our corporate culture. Preservation of our corporate culture is also made more difficult following the implementation of our hybrid work environment, and many of our employees continue to work from home on a full time full-time or part time part-time basis. Any failure to preserve our culture could harm our future success, including our ability to retain and recruit personnel, innovate and operate effectively and execute on our business strategy. If we experience any of these effects in connection with future growth, it could materially impair our ability to attract new customers, support and retain existing customers and expand their use of our platform, all of which would materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We currently derive most of our revenue from sales through our channel partner network, and we expect for the foreseeable future most of our future revenue growth will also be driven through this network. Not only does our joint sales approach require additional investment to grow and train our sales force, but we believe that continued growth in our business is dependent upon identifying, developing and maintaining strategic relationships with our existing and potential channel partners, including global systems integrators and regional telecommunications service providers that will in turn drive substantial revenue and provide additional value-added services to our customers. Our agreements with our channel partners are generally non-exclusive, meaning our channel partners may offer customers the products of several different companies, including products that compete with our cloud platform. Our channel partners may also cease marketing or reselling our platform with limited or no notice and without penalty. If our channel partners do not effectively market and sell subscriptions to our cloud platform, choose to promote our competitors’ products or fail to meet the needs of our customers, our ability to grow our business and sell subscriptions to our cloud platform may be adversely affected. For example, sales through our top five channel partners and their affiliates, in aggregate, represented 28% of our revenue for fiscal 2025, 25% of our revenue for fiscal 2024 and 26% of our revenue for fiscal 2023, and 30% and 26% 27% of our revenue for the three six months ended October January 31, 2025 2026 and 2024, 2025, respectively. In addition, our channel partner structure could subject us to lawsuits or reputational harm if, for example, a channel partner misrepresents the functionality of our cloud platform to customers or violates applicable laws or our corporate policies. Moreover, our channel partners' operations may be negatively impacted by events including pandemics, international conflicts, trade regulations including tariffs, inflation and other events affecting the global economy in general. For example, these events could increase credit risk of end customers and create uncertainty in credit markets. Our ability to achieve revenue growth in the future will depend in large part on our success in maintaining successful relationships with our channel partners, identifying additional channel partners and training our channel partners to independently sell and deploy our platform. If we are unable to maintain our relationships with our existing channel partners or develop successful relationships with new channel partners or if our channel partners fail to perform, our business, financial position and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

•other providers of IT security services that offer, or may leverage related technologies technologies, including AI, to introduce, products that compete with or are alternatives to our cloud platform.

Conditions in our market change rapidly and significantly as a result of technological advancements, advancements (particularly as a result of artificial intelligence), partnering or acquisitions by our competitors or continuing market consolidation. Start-up companies that innovate and large competitors that are making significant investments in research and development may introduce similar or superior products, services and technologies that compete with our cloud platform. In addition, large Large companies with substantial communications infrastructure, such as global telecommunications services provider partners providers or public cloud providers, have entered or could choose to enter the security solutions market. Some of our current or potential competitors have made or could make acquisitions of businesses or establish cooperative relationships that may allow them to offer more directly competitive and comprehensive solutions than were previously offered and adapt more quickly to new technologies and customer needs. In addition, AI technologies may lower barriers to entry for new competitors, including large AI providers, and enable faster development of alternative solutions. These competitive pressures in our market or our failure to compete effectively may result in price reductions, fewer orders, reduced revenue and gross margins, increased net losses and loss of market share. Any failure to meet and address these factors could materially harm our business and operating results.

•government action to limit access to the internet; internet or internet infrastructure;

We currently host our cloud platform and serve our customers from a global network of over 160 public exchanges globally and thousands of private exchanges at the edge. While we have electronic access to the components and infrastructure of our cloud platform that are hosted by third parties, we do not control the operation of these facilities. Consequently, we may be subject to service disruptions as well as a lack of adequate support for our data center operations due to reasons that are outside of our control. Our data centers are vulnerable to damage and connections to our data centers may be interrupted by a variety of sources, including earthquakes, floods, fires, power loss, system or infrastructure failures, computer viruses, physical or electronic break-ins, human error or interference (including by disgruntled or negligent, current or former employees or contractors) and other catastrophic events. Our data centers may also be subject to national or local administrative actions, changes in government regulations, including, for example, the impact of global economic and other sanctions like those levied in response to the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine, changes to legal or permitting requirements and litigation to stop, limit or delay operations. Despite precautions taken at these facilities, a decision to close the facilities without adequate notice or other unanticipated problems at these facilities could result in interruptions or delays in our services, impede our ability to scale our operations or have other adverse impacts upon our business. In addition, if we do not accurately plan for our infrastructure capacity requirements or experience significant strains on our data center capacity, resources, or if data center capacity is unavailable or unavailable at acceptable terms, we may experience delays and additional expenses in arranging new data centers, and our customers could experience performance degradation or service outages that may subject us to financial liabilities, result in customer losses and materially harm our business.

Our future success is substantially dependent on our ability to attract, retain and motivate the members of our management team and other key employees throughout our organization. In particular, we are highly dependent on the services of Jay Chaudhry, our Chief Executive Officer and chairman of our board of directors, who is critical to our future vision and strategic direction. We rely on our leadership team in the areas of operations, security, marketing, sales, support and general and administrative functions, and on individual contributors on our research and development team. Although we have entered into employment agreements with our key personnel, these agreements have no specific duration and constitute at-will employment. We do not maintain key person life insurance policies on any of our employees. The loss of one or more of our executive officers or key employees could seriously harm our business. We have experienced, and may in the future experience, significant change in senior management, including the recent hirings of our Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President, Agentic AI Security Engineering. Any significant leadership change or senior management transition involves risk, especially nearly simultaneous changes involving so many leaders and employees, and any failure to transition effectively or to retain these new leaders could hinder our strategic planning, business execution and future performance.

•U.S. or other government certification requirements applicable to our cloud platform, including the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), Program, are often difficult and costly to obtain and maintain and failure to do so will restrict our ability to sell to government customers;

Issues in the development, use and execution of AI and ML, combined with an uncertain regulatory environment, environment and evolving market expectations, may harm our business.

We are increasingly utilizing AI and ML capabilities, including, for example, those relating to generative AI and large language models, capabilities in our business operations and our product offerings. The rapid evolution of AI and ML requires the application of resources to develop, test and maintain our products and services and our internal applications, systems and process to help ensure that AI and ML are implemented responsibly to benefit our business, while also minimizing any unintended or harmful impact. As with many developing technologies, AI and ML present risks and challenges, many of which may be unknown, that could affect their further development, adoption and use and the related risks our ability to our business. realize their anticipated benefits. These risks and challenges could undermine public confidence in AI and ML, which could slow or even halt its adoption and negatively affect our business.

Further, a quickly evolving legal and regulatory environment may cause us to incur increased research and development costs, or divert resources from other development efforts, to address social and ethical issues related to AI and ML. In addition, as As the regulatory landscape for AI and ML evolves, we must develop and maintain robust internal policies and standards that clarify functional roles and responsibilities for the responsible and compliant development, deployment and use of AI technologies in our internal operations and product offerings. The use of AI technologies presents emerging ethical issues that could become controversial and failure, or perceived failure, to establish or enforce such policies and clear lines of accountability could increase our risk of noncompliance, operational errors or reputational harm. As a result of these and other challenges associated with our use, implementation and training of AI and ML, or misunderstandings or misrepresentations by third parties about the type of data that we use to train AI or ML, we may in the future be subject to legal liability, competitive harm, negative media coverage or regulatory action, including new proposed, and in certain cases enacted, rules and legislation regulating AI in jurisdictions such as the European Union, AI, new applications of existing data protection, privacy, cybersecurity, information security, intellectual property and other laws, and brand or reputational harm.

We rely on a limited number of suppliers for several components of our cloud platform and the systems we use to operate our business and provide services to our customers, including sole or limited sourced hardware, software and SaaS services. Some of our suppliers also temporarily hold a portion of our assets for us. Our reliance on these suppliers exposes us to risks, including reduced control over production costs, constraints based on the then-current availability, terms and pricing of these components and potential loss of assets. For example, we generally purchase equipment or the components of equipment on a purchase order basis, and do not have long-term contracts guaranteeing supply. We also rely on sole or limited sourced SaaS vendors to provide critical services that we use to operate our business. In addition, the technology industry has experienced component shortages, delivery delays, price increases (including memory, storage and processor price increases) and service interruptions in the past, and we have experienced and may continue to experience shortages, delays, materially increased costs or service interruptions in the future, interruptions, including as a result of natural disasters, acts of war or international conflicts, epidemics or global pandemics, increased demand in the industry industry, increased demand for components or services used to support AI development, including from large AI providers, or if our suppliers do not have sufficient rights to supply the components in all jurisdictions in which we may host our services. While global economic conditions have not yet had a material impact on our supply chain, these conditions have increased our costs in the past and could result in disruptions and delays for components in the future. Additionally, changes to existing international trade agreements, tariffs, export controls or other trade measures and regulations that impact our sourcing partners or us could may lead to increased costs to operate our business and to disruptions in our supply chain, which could limit our ability to support our customers. For instance, there is a risk that current geopolitical, diplomatic and other developments affecting the relationship between China and Taiwan may materially and negatively impact the availability of certain critical components that we use in our data centers, which we source from overseas. If our supply of certain components is disrupted, delayed or becomes significantly more expensive, there can be no assurance that available alternatives can serve as adequate replacements for the existing components or that alternatives will be available on terms that are favorable to us, if at all, as it may take several months or longer to identify, qualify and engage a new supplier or integrator. Any disruption or delay in access to components may materially increase our costs, require us to increase costs to our customers, delay opening new data centers, delay increasing capacity or replacing defective equipment at existing data centers, cause other constraints on our operations that could damage our channel partner or customer relationships or otherwise have a material adverse impact on our business. business and operating results.

Many countries are beginning to implement legislation and other guidance to align their international tax rules with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s, or OECD, OECD's Base Erosion and Profit Shifting recommendations and action plan that aim to standardize and modernize global corporate tax policy, including changes to cross-border tax, transfer pricing documentation rules and nexus-based tax incentive practices. The OECD is also continuing discussions surrounding fundamental changes in allocation of profits among tax jurisdictions in which companies do business, as well as the implementation of a global minimum tax (namely the “Pillar One” and “Pillar Two” proposals). Many countries have enacted or begun the process of enacting laws based on Pillar Two proposals, which may adversely impact our provision for income taxes, net income and cash flows.

As of October January 31, 2025, 2026, our executive officers, directors, current 5% or greater stockholders and affiliated entities together beneficially owned approximately 41.0% 42.3% of our common stock outstanding with Jay Chaudhry, our Chief Executive Officer and chairman of our board of directors, and his affiliates beneficially owning approximately 16.8% 16.7% of our common stock. As a result, these stockholders, acting together, will have significant control over most matters that require approval by our stockholders, including the election of directors and approval of significant corporate transactions. Corporate action might be taken even if other stockholders oppose them. This concentration of ownership might also have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control of us that other stockholders may view as beneficial.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation further provides that the federal district courts of the United States are the exclusive forum for resolving any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act. amended.

The preparation of financial statements in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States, or GAAP, GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in the consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, as provided in the section titled "Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations." The results of these estimates form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets, liabilities and equity, and the amount of revenue and expenses that are not readily apparent from other sources. Significant assumptions and estimates used in preparing the consolidated financial statements include those related to determination of revenue recognition, deferred revenue, deferred contract acquisition costs, capitalized internal-use software, valuation of acquired intangible assets, period of benefit generated from our deferred contract acquisition costs, allowance for doubtful accounts, valuation of common stock options and stock-based awards, useful lives of property and equipment, useful lives of acquired intangible assets, recoverability of goodwill, valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities, loss contingencies related to litigation, fair value of the 2028 Notes and the discount rate used for operating leases. Our results of operations may be adversely affected if our assumptions change or if actual circumstances differ from those in our assumptions, which could cause our results of operations to fall below the expectations of industry or financial analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in the trading price of our common stock.