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Organization and Business
9 Months Ended
Sep. 30, 2021
Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]  
Organization and Business Organization and Business
 
Company Overview
 
Inuvo is a technology company that develops and sells information technology solutions for marketing and advertising. These solutions predictively identify and message online audiences for any product or service across devices, channels and formats, including video, mobile, connected TV, display, social and native. These solutions allow Inuvo’s clients to engage with their customers and prospects in a manner that drives responsiveness. Inuvo facilitates the delivery of hundreds of millions of marketing messages to consumers every single month and counts among its clients numerous world- renowned names in industries that have included retail, automotive, insurance, health care, technology, telecommunications and finance.

The Inuvo solution incorporates a proprietary form of artificial intelligence, or AI, branded the IntentKey. This patented machine learning technology uses interactions with Internet content as a source of information from which to predict consumer intent. The AI can identify and advertise to the reasons why consumers are purchasing products and services not who those consumers are. In this regard, the technology is designed for a privacy conscious future and focused on the components of the advertising value chain most responsible for return on advertising spend, the intelligence behind the advertising decision.

Inuvo technology can be consumed both as a managed service and software-as-a-service. For clients, Inuvo has also developed a collection of websites including alot.com and earnspendlive.com, where Inuvo creates content in health, finance, travel, careers, auto, education and living categories. These sites provide the means to test various Inuvo technologies, while also delivering high quality consumers to these services clients through consumer interaction with the proprietary content within these sites.

There are many barriers to entry associated with the Inuvo business model, including a proficiency in large scale information processing, predictive software development, marketing data products, analytics, artificial intelligence, integration to the internet of things ("IOT"), and the relationships required to execute within the IOT. Inuvo’s intellectual property is protected by 18 issued and seven pending patents.

Liquidity
Throughout 2020 and the first quarter of 2021, we raised capital, reversing a historical net working capital deficit. Our principal sources of liquidity come as a result of the sale of common stock and use of a credit facility through Hitachi Capital America Corp. ("Hitachi") described in Note 6.

On March 20, 2020, we sold an aggregate of 3,931,428 shares of our common stock to the five members of our Board of Directors in a private placement exempt from registration under Section 4(a)(2) and Rule 506(b) of Regulation D under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. We received proceeds of $688,000 in this offering. On March 27, 2020, we closed on the first tranche of a registered direct offering in which we sold 3,115,001 shares of our common stock for gross proceeds of $545,125. On April 2, 2020, we closed on a second tranche of the registered direct offering in which we sold 1,400,285 shares of our common stock for gross proceeds of $245,050.

On April 10, 2020, we obtained an unsecured $1.1 million loan under the Paycheck Protection Program (the "PPP Loan") pursuant to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the "CARES Act") and which is administered by the United States Small Business Administration ("SBA"). In accordance with the requirements of the CARES Act, proceeds from the PPP Loan were used for payroll costs. The PPP Loan was fully forgiven on November 2, 2020. On May 15, 2020, we received a COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan ("EIDL") from the SBA for $149,900. We repaid the EIDL in full on January 28, 2021.

On June 8, 2020, we closed an additional registered direct offering of an aggregate of 12,222,222 shares of our common stock for gross proceeds of $5.5 million. On July 27, 2020, we closed a firm commitment underwritten follow-on public offering of an aggregate of 21,500,000 shares of our common stock for gross proceeds of $10.75 million. On January 19, 2021, we raised $8.0 million in gross proceeds in a registered direct offering, before expenses, through the sale of an aggregate of 13,333,334 shares of our common stock, and on January 22, 2021, we raised an additional $6.25 million in gross proceeds in a registered direct offering, before expenses, through the sale of an aggregate of 5,681,817 shares of our common stock.
On January 7, 2021, we filed the Articles of Amendment to our Articles of Incorporation in the state of Nevada increasing the number of authorized shares of our common stock from 100,000,000 to 150,000,000.

In March 2021, we contracted with an investment management company to manage our cash in excess of current operating needs. We placed $2 million in a money market fund and $10 million in an interest-bearing account. At September 30, 2021, our net deposits with the investment management company were $9 million and were invested in money market funds and marketable debt and equity securities. A detail of the activity is described in Note 3 to our Consolidated Financial Statements.

On May 28, 2021, we entered into a Sales Agreement (the "Sales Agreement") with A.G.P./Alliance Global Partners, as sales agent (the "Sales Agent"), pursuant to which we may offer and sell through or to the Sales Agent shares of our common stock (the "ATM Program") up to an aggregate amount of gross proceeds of $35,000,000. During the three months ended September 30, 2021, we did not issue any shares of common stock, we did not receive any aggregate proceeds, and we did not pay any commissions to the Sales Agent. Any shares of common stock offered and sold in the ATM Program will be issued pursuant to our universal shelf registration statement on Form S-3 (the "Shelf Registration Statement"). The ATM Program will terminate upon (a) the election of the Agent upon the occurrence of certain adverse events, (b) 10 days’ advance notice from one party to the other, or (c) the sale of the balance available under our Shelf Registration Statement. Under the terms of the Sales Agreement, the Sales Agent is entitled to a commission at a fixed rate of 3.0% of the gross proceeds from each sale of shares under the Sales Agreement.

On August 11, 2021, our shareholders approved a proposal to amend our articles of incorporation to increase the number of authorized shares of our common stock from 150,000,000 to 200,000,000, and on August 19, 2021, we filed Articles of Amendment to our Articles of Incorporation in the state of Nevada increasing the number of authorized shares of our common stock from 150,000,000 to 200,000,000.

Though we believe our current cash position and credit facility will be sufficient to sustain operations for the next twelve
months, if our plan to grow the IntentKey product is unsuccessful, we may need to fund operations through private or public
sales of securities, debt financings or partnering/licensing transactions.

Customer concentration

Our three largest customers are Google, Yahoo! and Proper Media and all are clients of the ValidClick platform. The percentages of overall Inuvo revenue associated with these clients is noted below:
For the Three Months Ended September 30,For the Nine Months Ended September 30,
2021202020212020
Google36.4%29.1 %38.3 %23.1 %
Yahoo!14.3%22.2 %16.7 %39.4 %
Proper Media13.6%— %15.5 %— %
Total64.3%51.3 %70.5 %62.5 %

As of September 30, 2021, Google, Yahoo! and Proper Media accounted for 44.0% of our gross accounts receivable balance. As of December 31, 2020, the same three customers accounted for 38.4% of our gross accounts receivable balance.

We still source the majority of our ValidClick revenue through these services relationships where we have access to advertiser media spend indirectly. While this strategy creates a concentration risk, we believe that it also provides upside opportunities including; access to hundreds of thousands of advertisers across geographies; the ability to scale our business across verticals; an avoidance of the sales costs associated with a large direct to advertisers’ sales force; access to innovation; overall media budget market insights; attractive payment terms; and low risk on receivables.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic
First identified in late 2019 and known now as COVID-19, the outbreak has impacted millions of individuals and businesses worldwide. In response, many countries have implemented measures to combat the outbreak which has had an unprecedented economic consequence. We did not experience an impact from COVID-19 through the end of fiscal year 2019 and had only minor impact from COVID-19 in the first quarter of 2020. Because we operate in the digital advertising industry, unlike a brick and mortar-based company, predicting the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on our company is difficult. Beginning in late April 2020, we experienced a significant reduction in marketing budgets and a decrease in monetization rates which impacted
ValidClick more severely than IntentKey. This resulted in a significant reduction in our overall revenue run rates during 2020 with the low point occurring during May 2020.

In response to COVID-19, we curtailed expenses, including compensation and travel throughout 2020, in addition to other actions. Additionally, in April 2020, we obtained an unsecured PPP Loan under the CARES Act of $1.1 million which we used primarily for payroll costs. The loan was fully forgiven by the SBA on November 2, 2020.

Beginning mid-June 2020, we began to experience an improvement in overall daily revenue. Due to the unprecedented sustainability of COVID-19 on our business, we were unable to predict with any certainty how our clients would adapt their business strategies within the context of COVID-19 and therefore how our revenue run rate would change as a result. We, therefore, were focusing our resources on areas we believe could have more immediate revenue potential, attempting to reduce expenses and raising additional capital so as to mitigate operating disruptions while the impact of COVID-19 abates. Since the start of the year with the roll out of vaccinations, we have seen an increase in our client’s willingness to spend on advertising and thereby an improvement in our revenue run rates.

Our net working capital was a positive $13.1 million as of September 30, 2021. During January 2021, we raised approximately $14.3 million, before expenses, through the sale of our securities in two offerings. During the second and third quarters of 2020, we raised approximately $16.5 million, before expenses, through the sale of our securities and in April 2020, we obtained a $1.1 million PPP Loan. There is no assurance that we will be successful in obtaining additional funding to grow operations, but believe we have sufficient capital to operate during the next twelve months.