VIAO VIA optronics AG

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UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

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FORM 20-F

☐    REGISTRATION STATEMENT PURSUANT TO SECTION 12(b) or 12(g) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

OR

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

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021

OR

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

For the transition period from _______________ to _______________

OR

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

Date of event requiring this shell company report _______________

Commission file number 001-39543

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

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*Not for trading purposes, but only in connection with the registration of American Depositary Shares pursuant to the requirements of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Securities registered or to be registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

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Securities for which there is a reporting obligation pursuant to Section 15(d) of the Act:

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Indicate the number of outstanding shares of each of the issuer’s classes of capital or common stock as of the close of the period covered by the annual report:

4,530,701 Ordinary Shares

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Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.

Yes ☐ No ☒

If this report is an annual or transition report, indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

Yes ☐ No ☒

Note—Checking the box above will not relieve any registrant required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 from their obligations under those Sections.

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Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.

Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files).

Yes ☒ No ☐

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

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

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

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Indicate by check mark which basis of accounting the registrant has used to prepare the financial statements included in this filing:

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If “Other” has been checked in response to the previous question, indicate by check mark which financial statement item the registrant has elected to follow.

Item 17 ☐ Item 18 ☐

If this is an annual report, indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).

Yes ☐ No ☒

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INTRODUCTION

Unless otherwise indicated, all references in this Annual Report on Form 20-F, or annual report, to the terms “VIA,” “VIA optronics AG,” “the company,” “we,” “us” and “our” refer to together with its subsidiaries.

This annual report includes trademarks, trade names and service marks, certain of which belong to us and others that are the property of other organizations. Solely for convenience, trademarks, trade names and service marks referred to in this annual report appear without the ®, ™ and SM symbols, but the absence of those symbols is not intended to indicate, in any way, that we will not assert our rights or that the applicable owner will not assert its rights to these trademarks, trade names and service marks to the fullest extent under applicable law. We do not intend our use or display of other parties’ trademarks, trade names or service marks to imply, and such use or display should not be construed to imply a relationship with, or endorsement or sponsorship of us by, these other parties.

PRESENTATION OF FINANCIAL INFORMATION

Our financial statements in this annual report were prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS, as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board, or IASB. None of our financial statements were prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

All references in this annual report to “$” mean U.S. dollars and all references to “€” mean Euros.

We have made rounding adjustments to some of the figures included in this annual report. Accordingly, numerical figures shown as totals in some tables may not be an arithmetic aggregation of the figures that preceded them.

INDUSTRY AND MARKET DATA

This annual report contains estimates, projections and other information concerning our industry, our business and the markets for our products. Information that is based on estimates, forecasts, projections, market research or similar methodologies is inherently subject to uncertainties, and actual events or circumstances may differ materially from events and circumstances that are assumed in this information. Unless otherwise expressly stated, we obtained this industry, business, market and other data from our own internal estimates and research as well as from reports, research surveys, studies and similar data prepared by market research firms and other third parties, industry, medical and general publications, government data and similar sources. While we are responsible for the accuracy of such information and believe our internal company research as to such matters is reliable and the market definitions are appropriate, neither such research nor these definitions have been verified by any independent source.

In addition, assumptions and estimates of our and our industry’s future performance are necessarily subject to a high degree of uncertainty and risk due to a variety of factors, including those described in the section titled “Item 3. Key Information—D. Risk Factors.” These and other factors could cause our future performance to differ materially from our assumptions and estimates. See “Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements.”

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SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This annual report contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, concerning our business, operations, financial performance and condition, as well as our plans, objectives and expectations for our business operations, financial performance and condition. In some cases, you can identify these forward-looking statements by words such as “believes,” “estimates,” “anticipates,” “expects,” “plans,” “intends,” “may,” “could,” “might,” “will,” “should,” “aims” or other similar expressions that convey uncertainty of future events or outcomes. Forward-looking statements appear in a number of places throughout this annual report and include statements regarding our intentions, beliefs, assumptions, projections, outlook, analyses or current expectations concerning, among other things, our intellectual property position, results of operations, cash needs, financial condition, liquidity, prospects, growth and strategies, the industry in which we operate and the trends that may affect the industry or us.

By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to events, competitive dynamics and industry change, and depend on economic circumstances that may or may not occur in the future or may occur on longer or shorter timelines than anticipated. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from the information expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements and opinions contained in this annual report are based upon information available to us as of the date of this annual report and, while we believe such information forms a reasonable basis for such statements, such information may be limited or incomplete, and our statements should not be read to indicate that we have conducted an exhaustive inquiry into, or review of, all potentially available relevant information. We caution you that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that are in some cases beyond our control. All of our forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause our actual results to differ materially from our expectations.

Actual results could differ materially from our forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, including, without limitation, risks related to:

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Any forward-looking statements that we make in this annual report speak only as of the date of such statement, and we undertake, except as may be required by law, no obligation to update such statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this annual report or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Comparisons of results for current and any prior periods are not intended to express any future trends or indications of future performance, unless expressed as such, and should only be viewed as historical data.

The factors that could affect our future financial results are discussed more fully in "Item 3. Key Information—D. Risk Factors” and in our other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). As a result of these factors, we cannot assure you that the forward-looking statements in this annual report will prove to be accurate. Furthermore, if our forward-looking statements prove to be inaccurate, the inaccuracy may be material. In light of the significant uncertainties in these forward-looking statements, you should not regard these statements as a representation or warranty by us or any other person that we will achieve our objectives and plans in any specified timeframe, or at all. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law, applicable regulations or the rules of any stock exchange to which we are subject.

You should read this annual report, the documents that we reference in this annual report and the documents we have filed as exhibits to this annual report completely and with the understanding that our actual future results may be materially different from what we expect. We qualify all of our forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements.

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SERVICE OF PROCESS AND ENFORCEMENT OF CIVIL LIABILITIES

We are organized as a German stock corporation (Aktiengesellschaft or AG), and our registered offices and most of our assets are located outside of the United States. In addition, most of the members of our management board, our supervisory board, our senior management named herein are residents of Germany and jurisdictions other than the United States. As a result, it may not be possible for you to effect service of process within the United States upon these individuals or upon VIA optronics AG or to enforce judgments obtained in U.S. courts based on the civil liability provisions of the U.S. securities laws against VIA optronics AG in the United States. Awards of punitive damages in actions brought in the United States or elsewhere are generally not enforceable in Germany. In addition, actions brought in a German court against VIA optronics AG or the members of its management board and supervisory board, its senior management named herein to enforce liabilities based on U.S. federal securities laws may be subject to certain restrictions; in particular, German courts generally do not award punitive damages. Litigation in Germany is also subject to rules of procedure that differ from the U.S. rules, including with respect to the taking and admissibility of evidence, the conduct of the proceedings and the allocation of costs. With very narrow exceptions, proceedings in Germany would have to be conducted in the German language, and all documents submitted to the court would, in principle, have to be translated into German. For these reasons, it may be difficult for a U.S. investor to bring an original action in a German court predicated upon the civil liability provisions of the U.S. federal securities laws against us, the members of our management board, supervisory board and senior management named in this annual report. In addition, even if a judgment against our company, the non-U.S. members of our management board, supervisory board, senior management named in this annual report based on the civil liability provisions of the U.S. federal securities laws is obtained, a U.S. investor may not be able to enforce it in U.S. or German courts.

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A description of the risks and uncertainties associated with our business is set forth below. You should carefully consider such risks and uncertainties, together with the other information contained in this annual report, and in our other public filings. If any such risks and uncertainties actually occur, our business, financial condition or results of operations could differ materially from the plans, projections and other forward-looking statements included elsewhere in this annual report and in our other public filings. In addition, if any of the following risks and uncertainties, or if any other risks and uncertainties, actually occur, our business, financial condition, or results of operations could be harmed substantially.

Risks Related to Our Business and Industry

Our solutions may not meet our customers’ requirements, which could result in a loss of customers or business.

Our products must meet our customers’ exacting standards for quality, performance and timely delivery. We design our solutions, usually in conjunction with our customers, on a project-by-project basis to meet specific customer specifications. By way of example, each metal mesh touch sensor must be customized to reflect the sensor pattern specified by our customers and the camera lenses in our camera modules must be aligned at the right angle within the sensor housing to enable proper viewing and functionality. Even for those projects where we have the autonomy to select certain components for integration into a finished display, we must select components that satisfy our customers’ technical requirements. We have in the past had, and may in the future have, products that do not meet our customers’ requirements due to production deficiencies, the inability to produce requested product volumes on time or other reasons. Any failure to satisfy our customers’ requirements in the past have resulted in, and in the future could result in, customers reducing or ceasing their business with us, or could require that we incur additional costs, for example by

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sourcing alternative components for use in the products that we deliver, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our failure to develop, introduce and produce new products, solutions and technologies or enhancements to existing products, solutions and technologies on a timely basis, at sufficient quality or quantity, or at competitive prices, could harm our ability to attract and retain customers.

We and our customers operate in intensely competitive industries that are characterized by rapidly evolving technology, frequent product introductions and ongoing demands for ever greater performance and functionality. New products and new or improved technologies, or new industry standards in the end-user markets, can render other existing products and services obsolete and unmarketable and motivate our customers to seek our support or the support of others in designing and manufacturing new products and/or to demand reductions in price for existing products and solutions. We therefore must continually identify, design, develop and introduce new and updated solutions for a variety of industries with improved features to remain competitive. To do this, we must:

The process of developing new products and solutions and enhancing existing products and solutions is complex, lengthy, costly and uncertain. In certain instances, we may be dependent on collaborations with commercial partners to develop new products and solutions, such as Corning with respect to cold-formed glass applications or Integrated Micro-Electronics, Inc. (“IMI”), an affiliate of our majority shareholder, with respect to camera module design and functionality. If we are unable to maximize these or other collaborations or are unable to find future collaboration partners, or if the commercial relationship were to break down, our ability to develop new solutions may be adversely impacted. If we fail to anticipate our customers’ changing needs or emerging technological trends, our market share and results of operations could materially suffer. We must make long-term investments in our research and development capabilities, including product development and equipment customization, develop or obtain appropriate know-how and intellectual property and commit significant resources, including to enhance and prepare our production capacity and software design capabilities, before knowing whether our predictions will accurately reflect customer demand for our products and solutions. As we design and develop new technological solutions, including interactive display solutions, we may face challenges and additional costs, in particular in areas like camera module design and software development where we have less experience. Furthermore, we may incur development costs on specific customer projects, and we may not be able to recoup such costs if our customers do not purchase the number of units that we expect. If we are unable to adapt our products to new technological industry standards or customer requirements, including with respect to the incorporation of enhanced features (such as interactive camera module technology or facial recognition) or functionality (such as glove functionality and software interactivity), the market’s acceptance of our products and solutions could decline and our results would suffer. Furthermore, even if we are able to develop new products and solutions or enhance our existing products to meet our customers’ expectations, if we are unable to achieve such developments on a cost effective basis or at sufficient quality or quantity, our customers may elect not to purchase our products or solutions and we may lose market share.

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There are numerous potential alternatives to our display and touch technologies and materials and camera modules.

Optically bonded displays are more expensive than organically bonded (or air-gapped) displays and, as a result, may not be best suited for applications, specifically within the consumer electronics market, in which the highest quality performance characteristics (such as highly responsive touch functionality, sunlight readability and shock and temperature resistance) are not required. A number of companies produce organically bonded displays that do not have these high-quality performance characteristics, but can compete with our display offerings in other ways. In addition, our optically bonded displays must compete with displays that are optically bonded using different techniques than the ones we employ, including liquid or dry optical bonding using epoxy or polyurethane. Companies are making substantial investments in, and conducting research to, improve the characteristics of these organically bonded displays and alternative optical bonding techniques that may improve functionality or lower the cost of their optically bonded displays. This could cause our customers to choose such products over our offerings. With respect to the cold forming technology we are developing with our collaborator, Corning, alternatives in the market exist, including “hot formed” products. The hot forming process is more complicated and more expensive as compared to the cold forming process, which produces flat glass which is then shaped or molded after processing and held in place by a frame. In the hot forming process, glass is heated and shaped and, once formed, processed (for example, coated or colored). The technical complexities of the process of handling a non-flat glass also results in a significantly lower yield, which increases production costs of hot formed glass. The advantage of hot formed glass, however, is that it is not under mechanical tension after forming, unlike cold formed glass which needs to be held in place by a frame after forming.

Our metal mesh touch sensor technology is subject to competition from other producers of metal mesh touch sensors that use copper as the conductive material, silver mesh sensor and nano layer technologies that facilitate touch-enabled display capability, and from the integration of in-cell or on-cell touch sensing functionality into displays. Advances in these technologies may result in increased competition to our metal mesh touch sensor technology, the impact of which may be compounded as enhanced touch-enabled displays replace existing conventional displays. In addition, our camera modules and related solutions are subject to competition from other producers. See “Business— Competition.”

We face intense competition within our industry and our competitors may introduce new display or touch sensor and/or camera-enabled solutions and specifications faster than we do, at lower prices or with better performance characteristics. Our competitors may manage to reduce their costs at a greater rate than we do, or may benefit from support from corporate parents. Our failure to compete effectively with them could materially adversely affect our business, net assets, financial condition and results of operations.

We face global competition in the market for display solutions and competition for our touch sensor and camera-enabled solutions. Some of our current and potential competitors may have a number of advantages over us, including:

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Consolidation among our competitors could also result in the formation of larger competitors with greater market share and greater financial and technological resources than we have, further increasing competition in the markets we serve. Furthermore, in some cases, our customers for certain products or services, such as consigned optical bonding services, may also be our competitors with respect to other aspects of our business, such as producing enhanced display solutions, and they could cease purchasing products or services from us.

Despite our investments in research and development and engineering, our products and process technologies may fail to keep pace with our competitors’ ability to produce new technologies, higher quality display solutions at a lower cost, and our competitors may be able to offer their products on a more price-competitive basis than we can. If our development fails to keep pace, and as a result of the intense competition in the market for display solutions and competition for touch sensor solutions, we may encounter significant pricing pressure and/or suffer losses in market share. For example, our competitors have in the past and may again in the future lower prices in order to increase their market share, which would ultimately reduce the prices we may realize from our customers. If we are unable to defend our market share by continually developing new products and solutions and/or reducing our own cost base, the pricing pressure exerted by our competitors could cause us to lose important customers or lead to falling average selling prices and declining margins. We may not be able to offset the effects of any price reductions with an increase in the number of products sold, cost reductions or otherwise, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. See “Business—Competition” for more information on competition in our business.

A limited number of customers account for a significant portion of our revenue. These customers can exert a significant amount of negotiating leverage over us, and revenue from them can be volatile. The loss of, or a substantial decline in sales to, one or more of these customers could have a material adverse effect on our revenue and profitability.

In 2021 and 2020, we derived 71.6% and 80.9%, respectively, of our revenue from our five largest customers, and 30.3% and 38.8%, respectively, of our revenue from our largest customer. We expect to continue to derive a significant percentage of our revenue from a limited number of customers for the foreseeable future, and our results of operations may fluctuate materially as a result of changes in such customers’ buying patterns. For the year ended December 31, 2021 we experienced an increase in revenue of 22.2% in our display solution segment compared to the comparable period in 2020, principally due to ramp ups of projects with automotive customers. During the year ended December 31, 2020, for example, revenues in our display solution segment increased by approximately 12.2% as compared to the comparable period in 2019, principally due to higher than anticipated sales to two key consumer end-market customers, Dell and Pegatron. The increase in revenue from Dell during this period resulted from increased demand in laptops due to homeschooling. We are not necessarily able to anticipate or influence external events, such as customer production delays, macroeconomic, political or other development, supply chain challengers and the resulting availability of component parts, and one or more such events could occur at any time or from time to time which, individually or in combination, could materially and adversely impact our sales, revenues and profitability.

Moreover, our top customers may decide not to continue to purchase products from us at current levels or at all. The loss of any significant customer (or customers that in the aggregate represent a significant portion of our revenue) or a material reduction in the amount of business we undertake with such customers could have a material adverse effect on our revenue and profitability. In addition, our customers can demand and have in the past demanded reduced prices or other pricing, quality or delivery commitments as a condition to their purchasing from us or increasing their purchase volume, which can, among other things, result in reduced gross margins in order to maintain or expand our market share. If we are unable to retain and expand our business with our customers on favorable terms, or if we are unable to achieve gross margins that are similar to or more favorable than the gross margins we have historically achieved, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be materially adversely affected.

Our customers’ negotiating leverage can also result in customer arrangements that may contain liability risk to us. For example, some of our customers require that we provide them with indemnification against certain liabilities, including claims of losses by their customers caused by our products. Any increase in our customers’ negotiating leverage, including with respect to indemnification, may expose us to increased liability risk, which, if realized, may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

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Because we do not generally have long-term agreements with our customers and our customers generally are not obligated to purchase a minimum quantity of products or services from us, we could fail to match our production with our customers’ demand. Our results may suffer if we are not able to adequately forecast demand for our products.

It is not industry practice to enter into firm, long-term purchase commitments. Sales to our customers and arrangements for prototype development are generally governed by framework agreements that do not include minimum purchase quantity requirements. Although we consult with major customers who typically provide us with forecasts of their product requirements, customers may choose to operate under non-binding arrangements, may not contract for products as forecasted, may cancel orders that they do place or reduce the quantities ordered from us for a number of reasons and with limited or no notice. They may also discontinue their relationship with us at any time, potentially without penalty. The timing of customer orders can have a material impact on our revenue and result in volatility of revenue period-on-period, as customer orders and resulting sales volumes can shift between quarters with little to no warning, which can materially impact our results in individual quarters. If we are unable to predict accurately the amount of products needed to meet customer requirements, or if customers were to unexpectedly cancel or reduce a large number of orders simultaneously, as we experienced in 2019, our production could significantly exceed our customers’ demand and, due to the bespoke nature of many of our products, it would be difficult to find alternative customers for the unsold products and we would be unable to quickly transition production to alternative projects. This could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

In addition, in the automotive end-market we may be required to deliver products over a long period of time without having any commitments from our customers to purchase minimum volumes of such products throughout that period and/or maintain replacement inventory and spare parts to support post-sale maintenance obligations. This means that our production facilities need to maintain the capability to produce such products over a long period of time, potentially on short notice, including through reserving or re-tooling machines which could be used for other projects, in order to meet demands for our products over time. As a result, we also need to maintain spare inventory in good working condition for extended periods which can be difficult and involve significant expense. In addition, until we are awarded a project and the relevant operating procedures are determined, changes in design, product specification, quantities and materials may occur which could make it difficult for us to meet the customer’s demand on the schedule the customer requires. Failure to meet the demands of our customers in the automotive end-market could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations, as well as harm our reputation and relationships with our automotive customers.

We are highly dependent on the success of our customers and their sales to certain end-markets.

Our customers are not the end users of our product offerings, but rather they use our products and solutions as a part of their products, which are ultimately sold to an end user. In the case of metal mesh touch sensors, we usually function as a component supplier selling touch sensors to third parties for incorporation into their own finished products, which are subsequently sold to OEMs, Tier-1 suppliers and other suppliers for inclusion in end-user products. Our success depends in large part on the ability of our customers to market and sell their end products that incorporate our products. Some of the end-markets in which our customers operate are characterized by intense competition, rapid technological change and economic uncertainty, and as such we may be unable to replace the revenue associated with the loss of any one key customer with new business relationships. If we are unable to collaborate with and secure design wins with successful OEMs, we may not create meaningful demand for our products. Moreover, if any of our customers choose to focus their efforts on programs and end products that do not incorporate our products and solutions, we may experience decreased demand for our products. Any of these circumstances may materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

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Unfavorable global economic conditions could adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations. Our results of operations could be adversely affected by general conditions in the global economy and in the global financial markets, including inflation and supply disruption. A domestic or global financial crisis can cause extreme volatility and disruptions in the capital and credit markets. A severe or prolonged economic downturn, which could result from an event like the COVID-19 pandemic or the recent global sanctions imposed by countries against Russia following Russia’s military intervention in the Ukraine, could result in a variety of risks to our business, including weakened demand for our product candidates or an inability to purchase necessary supplies on acceptable terms, if at all. A weak or declining economy could strain our suppliers, possibly resulting in supply disruption, or cause delays in payments for our services by third-party payors or our collaborators. In addition, the conflict in Eastern Europe has had significant ramifications on global financial markets, which may adversely impact our ability to raise capital on favorable terms or at all. Any of the foregoing could harm our business and we cannot anticipate all of the ways in which the current economic climate and financial market conditions could adversely impact our business

We are dependent upon our relationship with Toppan Touch Panels Products Co., Ltd., (“Toppan”), the minority owner of VTS-Touchsensor Co., Ltd., Higashi Omi, Japan (“VTS”), with respect to the production and sale of our metal mesh touch sensor technology.

We produce and sell our metal mesh touch sensors and films through VTS, our subsidiary in which Toppan is the minority investor. In 2021 and 2020, 14.4% and 16.7%, respectively, of our revenue was generated from sales by VTS. VTS’s business operations were established through a series of commercial agreements between us (or VTS) and Toppan. These agreements include: a shareholder agreement, an intellectual property transfer agreement, an intellectual property license agreement, facility lease agreements, employee secondment agreements, a business assistance agreement and an R&D and consignment agreement. Pursuant to these agreements, Toppan transferred patents and patent applications relating to its sensor technologies to VTS. Additionally, Toppan agreed to lease to VTS plant buildings for two manufacturing sites in Japan to produce VTS’s products, and to provide the majority of plant employees. The employee secondment arrangements with Toppan had an original expiration date in March 2022, but the expiration date was extended to March 2023. If the extension is not successfully concluded, we run the risk of not having sufficient employees to staff our manufacturing sites, potential delays as a result of hiring, onboarding and training new employees and increased salary costs associated with replacing or supplementing our staffing requirements, any of which could materially affect our operations. VTS’s research and development activities are delegated to Toppan under an R&D and consignment agreement. The shareholders agreement also includes certain non-competition, lock-up and deadlock put/call provisions that govern certain of our and Toppan’s rights and obligations with respect to VTS. The deadlock put/ call provisions additionally provide that in the event of a deadlock between us and Toppan, we could be entitled to or become obligated to acquire all of Toppan’s interest in VTS at certain pre-negotiated price thresholds. Under the commercial agreements with Toppan, if Toppan ceases to own an equity interest in VTS, Toppan is permitted to terminate these commercial agreements without our consent. Accordingly, the continuation and success of our metal mesh business is highly dependent on Toppan and on our agreements with Toppan. In addition, there can be no assurance that we will be able to complete the registration process for any patent applications transferred by Toppan to VTS to perfect VTS’s rights in such intellectual property or that VTS will have access to the most qualified Toppan personnel for purposes of carrying out its operations. If any of the commercial agreements with Toppan were to terminate, our relationship with Toppan were to deteriorate or if Toppan elected to prioritize its wholly-owned business over that of VTS, VTS’ business operations would be materially and adversely impacted and it would have a material adverse effect on our ability to produce and sell metal mesh touch sensors and recognize the related revenue. In addition, if we were obligated pursuant to the put/call provisions in the shareholders agreement to acquire all of Toppan’s interest in VTS our cash flow in the relevant period would be materially and adversely affected. The occurrence of these or related events would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operation and financial condition.

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We may not be able to maximize the benefits of our strategic partnership with Toppan or effectively collaborate with them in the future.

On March 29, 2018, we acquired a 65% interest in VTS from Toppan. We may not be able to maximize the benefits of our strategic partnership with Toppan in the future or may not collaborate with them effectively, and our failure to do so successfully may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations, including, among other things, through disruption of operations at facilities we lease from Toppan, loss of Toppan employees providing services to VTS, failure to successfully execute on and maximize the benefits to us under ongoing agreements with Toppan, potential infringement of third-party intellectual property rights by products

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manufactured by VTS based on intellectual property rights licensed/obtained from Toppan or those developed by VTS with the assistance of Toppan and issues relating to regulatory compliance in production processes operated by Toppan employees.

Winning business is often subject to a competitive selection process that can be lengthy and requires us to incur significant expense, and we may not be selected.

In many cases, we must win competitive selection processes, resulting in so-called “design wins”, before we can supply customers with our products and solutions. These selection processes can range from approximately six months to 30 months, depending on the end-markets and the customers and can require us to incur significant design and development expenditures. We may not win the competitive selection process and may never generate any revenue despite incurring significant design and development expenditures, including prototype development and tooling costs. The new product selection processes we seek to enter are determined by our sales team based on their judgment and experience. Even if we are successful in obtaining design wins, there is no guarantee that our sales team will have identified and pursued the most lucrative selection processes or those that will generate revenue. Because we typically focus on only a few customers in a given product area, the loss of a design win may result in our failure to have our technologies added to new generation products in that area. This can result in lost sales and could hurt our position in future competitive selection processes to the extent we are not perceived as being a technology leader.

After winning a product design for one of our customers, we may still experience delays ranging from one quarter to eight quarters (depending on the end-market and the specific life cycle of each product) in generating revenue as a result of lengthy customer development and design cycles or we may be unable to ramp up production for customers, in particular new customers, on a timely basis. In addition, a change, delay or cancellation of a customer’s plans could significantly adversely affect our financial results, as we may have incurred significant expense and generated no revenue or materially less revenue than we expected. Finally, even if a design is introduced, if our customers fail to successfully market and sell their products, it could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

We may not realize our strategies, including our goal of becoming a leading provider of interactive display solutions, in particular to OEMs and their Tier-1 suppliers.

Our goal is to become a leading provider of interactive display solutions, in particular to OEMs and their Tier-1 suppliers, specifically within the automotive and industrial/specialized markets, and to continue to deliver innovative products for our customers in the consumer end-market. However, we may be unsuccessful in achieving this goal. We believe a primary risk to achieving this goal is related to maintaining and developing required design resources in timely manner. In addition, overall demand and market conditions may impact our ability to achieve this goal.

Furthermore, even if we are able to collaborate with key OEMs as a design partner to incorporate our products and solutions into their end products and produce attractive interactive display solutions, there are always unforeseeable risks such as technical problems, which could result in OEMs reducing their use of our products and solutions or ceasing their collaborations with us entirely.

Our OEM, Tier-1 supplier and other customers’ product offerings can be subject to lengthy development periods, making it difficult to predict when and whether we will receive revenue for our products that are incorporated into their offerings.

The product development process for our OEM, Tier-1 supplier and other customers can be lengthy, and in some instances may last for longer than two years, in particular when we are developing prototypes for evaluation and use by new customers. We may not earn revenue from our solutions unless and until products featuring our technologies are shipped to our customers, and prior to such time we may incur unreimbursed costs, which at times may be significant, for product development. Throughout the product development process, we face the risk that a manufacturer or supplier may delay the incorporation of, or choose not to incorporate, our technologies into its products, making it difficult for us to predict the revenue we may receive, if any. Furthermore, the expectations set out by our OEM and supplier customers in our framework agreements with respect to the timing for shipment of end-user products and realization of related revenue and ongoing sales forecasts may be inaccurate in whole or in part. After a product launches, our revenue still depends on market acceptance of the end-user product and the option packages if our

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technology is an option (for example, a navigation or entertainment unit), which are likely to be determined by many factors beyond our control.

Our products and solutions are one of many components incorporated into our customers’ product offerings and our business may be harmed, potentially significantly, if our direct customers experience delays in the production of their product offerings, including due to performance issues with, or supply shortages of, component parts unrelated to our products and solutions.

Our customers generally use our products and solutions as one of the components or portions of their offerings to their own customers, who in turn sell these offerings to end users. Accordingly, our success depends in large part on the ability of our customers to market and sell their offerings that incorporate our products and solutions. Our customers’ product offerings are usually complex and may involve many different systems and components, and their ability to sell their products depends on many factors, including the availability of component parts, raw materials and other necessary services; the proper functioning of each of these components and the timeliness and effectiveness of their own processes. Supply delays, raw material shortages or the failure or under-performance of components unrelated to our products and solutions may impact our business even when we are able to deliver our products and services timely and defect-free. These factors may cause delays in our customers’ production cycles, may cause our customers to cut back or delay their purchases of our products and solutions or may lead them to cease purchases from us entirely or for periods of time while they address their production issues. Because our customer agreements typically do not specify minimum order requirements by our customers, our customers usually have no obligation to purchase our products or solutions if they experience supply issues unrelated to our products or solutions, or to make any prepayments to us.

For example, the decline in revenue from AU Optronics in 2019 was the result of lower sales to one of their customers that experienced production declines during this period, which led AU Optronics to correspondingly reduce their purchases from us during the relevant period. During any period in which one or more key customers materially reduces or suspends purchases of our products or solutions, we may incur stranded costs or accumulate inventories that cannot be readily sold to other customers, or at all, and we may be unable to shift our production capacity to other projects that have equivalent or more favorable cost structures. Production issues or delays like these may occur in the future, often with little or no advance notice. As a result, any issues with respect to the manufacture or production of our customers’ products could materially and adversely affect our ability to sell our products and solutions and may materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We depend on a limited number of suppliers, some of which are sole sources, and our business could be disrupted if they are unable to meet our needs.

We depend on a limited number of suppliers of our key materials, including bonding materials and custom equipment used to manufacture and test our products, and key design tools used in the design, testing and manufacturing of our products. We currently source all of our requirements for the silicone base materials used in our VIA bond plus from a sole supplier, Wacker Chemie AG (“Wacker”), or Wacker. With suppliers other than Wacker, we do not have long-term agreements and instead purchase materials and equipment through a purchase order process. As a result, these suppliers may stop supplying us materials and equipment, limit the allocation of supply and equipment to us due to increased industry demand or significantly increase their prices at any time and with little or no advance notice. From time to time, our suppliers have limited supply or change their pricing terms with little or no advance notice, and our agreements with them generally do not provide remedies for such events. In 2021, we experienced increases in the price of certain raw materials such as silicon, copper, and resin, as well as higher transportation and logistics costs.  The impact to us of such adverse actions by our suppliers in the future could be heightened because of our reliance on sole source suppliers or a limited number of suppliers and could result in delivery problems, reduced control over product pricing and quality, including because our sole source suppliers could prioritize other customers’ business over ours. These suppliers could also exert a significant amount of negotiating leverage over us, which may require us to accept higher prices or other obligations in order to maintain or expand our relationship. Some of our suppliers may experience financial difficulties that could prevent them from supplying us materials, or equipment used in the design and manufacture of our products. In addition, our suppliers, including our sole source suppliers, may experience manufacturing delays or shutdowns due to circumstances beyond their control such as labor issues, political unrest, war or natural disasters. Our suppliers, including our sole source suppliers, could also determine to discontinue the manufacture of materials, components, equipment or tools that may be difficult for us to obtain from alternative sources. In addition, the suppliers of design tools that we rely on may not maintain or advance the capabilities of their tools in a

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manner sufficient to meet the technological requirements for us to design advanced products or provide such tools to us at reasonable prices.

Further, the industry in which our suppliers operate is subject to a trend of consolidation. To the extent this trend continues, we may become dependent on even fewer suppliers to meet our material and equipment needs. In the event we need to establish relationships with additional suppliers, doing so may be a time-consuming process and would require significant training and education of such suppliers, and there are no assurances that we would be able to enter into necessary arrangements with these additional suppliers in time to avoid supply constraints in sole sourced components or that such suppliers would be able to immediately perform at levels required to meet our requirements and/or specifications.

We are dependent upon Wacker as the sole source of the base silicone material used in our VIA bond plus adhesive. Should Wacker become unable to supply us with sufficient quantities of these materials, we may be unable to replace these supplies with alternative materials quickly, on reasonable terms or at all.

Wacker is our sole supplier of the base silicone material we use to prepare our VIA bond plus adhesive, a critical element in our optical bonding process. We are party to a Framework Cooperation Agreement with Wacker, dated April 8, 2019, that replaced an earlier agreement between Wacker and us originally signed in 2013. Wacker currently produces silicone materials in accordance with specifications we have provided, and in the context of our commercial relationship with Wacker, those specifications have been refined and developed over a period of years under the prior agreement. With respect to the continued supply of silicone materials, the Framework Cooperation Agreement provides as follows: (i) Wacker is required to exclusively provide us with the base silicone material used in our VIA bond plus adhesive per the specifications set forth in such agreement so long as we satisfy a minimum delivery amount per calendar year, (ii) we are required to purchase all of our requirements of our silicone materials from Wacker, if the silicone material is suitable for the project and approved by our customer and except to the extent that Wacker is unable to meet our requirements (which Wacker is required to confirm in writing within one week of our request for material) in which event we are permitted to obtain a suitable different material, (iii) the price of such material shall be mutually negotiated each year during the fourth quarter, with the contract being terminable if the parties are not able to agree on terms and (iv) Wacker’s liability is limited as it solely warrants that the silicone material will meet the specifications provided in the agreement. The Framework Cooperation Agreement had an initial term ending December 31, 2021 and renewed automatically for a successive one year term. The Framework Cooperation Agreement will continue to renew automatically for successive one year terms unless it is earlier terminated on six months’ advance notice. While the Framework Cooperation Agreement may be renewed for additional periods, the exclusive relationship with Wacker will terminate no later than December 31, 2022.

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The Framework Cooperation Agreement also establishes Wacker and us as development partners for materials in the area of optical bonding. The agreement further provides that it is not intended to affect any pre-existing intellectual property rights of the parties or to effect any cross-licensing of intellectual property.

We have qualified an alternative supplier for a different silicone material to use in the preparation of the bonding adhesive employed in our optical bonding process to enhance our sourcing positioning. However, we may be unsuccessful in obtaining alternative sources of supply if such supplier, or any alternative suppliers, are unable to deliver silicone materials of the same quality or quantity, on similar commercial terms or in as timely a manner as Wacker has delivered silicone materials in the past. We must also ensure that we do not infringe any intellectual property rights of others, including Wacker, in our sourcing from alternative suppliers. Wacker increased its prices in 2021 and in the future, Wacker could insist on price increases that will not be acceptable to us, including price increases effective in 2022, and therefore result either in the termination of the agreement, which could cause uncertainties in the sourcing of the base silicone material, or, if we have no reasonable alternative to accepting the higher prices, could cause our margins to decrease. If we are not able to secure an alternate source of supply for our bonding material, on commercially reasonable terms, our ability to fulfill customer orders could be materially and adversely impacted and we could experience a material and adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

We have a limited number of suppliers and our business may be harmed if they were to interrupt supply or increase prices.

Any supply deficiencies in the industry relating to the quantities of materials, equipment or tools we use to design and manufacture our products, or a reduction in the quality of such materials, equipment or tools, could materially

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and adversely affect our ability to fulfill customer orders and, as a result, our results of operations. Our manufacturing operations depend upon obtaining deliveries of base equipment at reasonable prices and on a timely basis to enable our customization and utilization of such equipment in our manufacturing process. Our proprietary equipment is sophisticated and complex and it may be difficult for us to rapidly substitute one supplier for another or one piece of equipment for another. We aim to have multiple suppliers for all equipment needed in our production processes including camera modules. However given that we operate in a highly technologically driven market, there may be a limited number of suppliers available for certain customized production equipment.

In addition, lead times for the purchase of certain materials, equipment and tools from suppliers have increased and in some instances have exceeded the lead times provided to us by our customers. In some cases, these lead time increases have limited our ability to respond to or meet customer demand. We have in the past, and may in the future, experience delays or reductions in supply shipments, which could reduce our revenue and profitability. In addition, potential regulatory changes, including tariffs or other restrictions imposed by the United States or others, could in the future prohibit, or increase our costs relating to, the use of suppliers in certain regions, including China. If key components or materials are unavailable or limited in availability, our costs would increase and our revenue would decline.

The expansion of production facilities by us or malfunction of our current equipment may put additional pressure on our supply chain. If we are unable to obtain any equipment necessary to expand our production capacity in a timely manner, we may be unable to ramp up production according to our plan or fulfill our customer orders, which could negatively impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We operate without contracts with some of our suppliers.

In the ordinary course of business and consistent with industry practice, we operate without contracts with some of our suppliers, particularly in Asia. These suppliers currently include suppliers of off-the-shelf displays that we incorporate into certain product offerings when required by our customers or when it is cost effective to do so because our enhanced display capabilities are not needed. In the event that we encounter any disruptions or disagreements with these suppliers, we may face difficulty in seeking remedies and enforcing judgments in the absence of a contract governing our commercial relationship with these suppliers. For example, in 2021, we received a delayed delivery of silicon, which resulted in our paying for premium freights to fulfill customer demands. In addition, some agreements with our suppliers have expired and have not been re-negotiated. Any inability to enter into new agreements with these suppliers in a timely manner could result in us having to agree to less favorable terms, could disrupt our supply of materials and could increase our risk of litigation in the event that these suppliers cease performing under the prior contracts during the course of our negotiations with them.

We may face volatility in the prices or availability of certain components and raw materials used in our business, which could adversely impact the competitive position of our products or may result in a decrease of margins and profits.

We use various components, including silicones, cover lenses, backlights, display housings, and raw materials, such as copper, in our products. The costs of components and raw materials depend to a large extent on the world market prices, which may be subject to significant fluctuations beyond our control. Changes in business conditions, increasing shipping costs, unforeseen circumstances and governmental changes, as well as other factors beyond our control or which we do not presently anticipate, could affect our suppliers’ ability to deliver raw materials, components or equipment to us on a timely basis. For instance, we may be impacted by currency fluctuations, trade barriers, tariffs or shortages and other general economic or political conditions, such as the ongoing military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which may limit our ability to obtain key raw materials or components for our products or significantly increase freight charges and other costs and expenses associated with our business. Any of the foregoing could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and prospects.

If the prices for raw materials and purchased components were to rise, our manufacturing costs could increase. For example, in 2021, the price of certain raw materials, such as  silicone, increased. If our manufacturing costs increase, we could be forced to cover our need for these raw materials and purchased components with higher prices of our products, which could result in lower sales, or if we are not able to increase prices due to fixed price contracts, competitive pressure or otherwise, to lower margins and profitability. We do not hedge raw material prices. Furthermore, to the extent that we rely on components that are pre-assembled or manufactured for others, a shortage in such components

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would require us to find alternative manufacturers of these components or to manufacture these components ourselves, which may be time consuming, costly or not possible. Shortages of necessary raw materials or component parts may also cause a sharp rise in their prices. In addition, the armed conflicts involving Russia and Ukraine may also cause a disruption or delay in our supply chain. In the event of any disruption or delay in supply, it may be difficult to locate alternative sources of components from one or several suppliers and doing so may require a significant amount of time and resources. A delay in the delivery of necessary raw materials or component parts could result in delays in projects or delivery of products, which could ultimately delay deliveries of our products to our customers. If we were permanently to lose a supplier of or access to important raw materials or component parts, we also might be forced to alter the design of certain of our products in order to use raw materials or component parts from other suppliers. In extreme cases, this could mean that we would be at least temporarily unable to produce, supply or service certain of our products. Such inability could impair our relationship with our customers and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

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We utilize floating and fixed pricing arrangements with our customers. Unless specifically agreed with customers, if a contract with a customer provides for fixed prices, it is generally difficult for us to pass on increased prices for raw materials and purchased components. Sustained increases in prices for raw materials and purchased components that cannot be passed onto our customers would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We face payment risk from our customers.

We are subject to a number of trade risks including long accounts receivable payment cycles and difficulties in collecting accounts receivable in certain countries. For example, our accounts receivable are generally subject to 60 to 90 day payment cycles. We may be unable to successfully manage all of these risks, many of which are outside our control, which could lead to payment default by a customer. We currently have no insurance coverage for such payment defaults. Delays in the implementation of, or in payments related to, significant orders and projects may also have a negative effect on the timing of our revenue, which may adversely impact our operating results and our ability to make capital expenditures or investment in research and development. Any interruption in the realization of our revenues could require us to engage in short term borrowings under our existing working capital financing facilities, or require us to seek additional sources of financing, in order to meet our working capital requirements, which would result in increased borrowing costs. These would impact our profitability, assuming we are able to source such borrowings; if we are unable to finance our capital expenditures or research and development activities in full or in part, it could materially affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

We may misallocate our research and development resources or have insufficient resources to conduct the necessary level of research and development to remain competitive.

As interactive display technology becomes more advanced, and as we implement our strategies, we expect our research and development costs to grow, including as a percentage of our revenues, and we may be unable to keep increases in these costs from adversely affecting our profitability. We may also devote significant research and development resources to technologies or products that turn out to be unsuccessful or to secure new customers that ultimately do not purchase products. Commitments to developing any new products must be made well in advance of sales, and customer demands and technology may change while we are in development, rendering our products and solutions outdated or uncompetitive before their introduction and therefore difficult to sell profitably or at all. We must therefore anticipate both future demand and the technology features that will be required to supply such demand. If we suffer from reduced revenues or cash flows or incur losses as a result of a market downturn or otherwise, we may not be able to devote sufficient resources to the research and development needed to remain competitive in a timely manner or at all. Our failure to properly allocate research and development resources could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If there is a decline in the average selling prices of display or touch sensor solutions we sell, or if prices decrease faster than we are able to reduce our costs, our margins may be adversely affected.

The average selling prices of our display solutions, including optical bonding, camera module and metal mesh technology, may decline as a result of, among other factors, technological advancements leading to cost reductions and increased competition. In general, the prices of new products in our target markets generally decline over time. Although we seek to focus our efforts on technologically advanced solutions that we believe to be less susceptible to these

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downward pressures on selling prices, we may not succeed in prioritizing these higher margin products in our product mix, or prices of these products may also fluctuate or decline, albeit at a slower rate. The average selling price for the display solutions we produce may decrease faster than we anticipate and are able to reduce our manufacturing costs. We may also be unable to keep pace with technological advancements in our end-marks, enabling our competitors to produce more competitive technologies for which our customers are willing to pay higher prices. The potential loss of customers, competitive lead, and market share would adversely affect our gross margins would decrease, and our business, financial condition and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.

Products that contain, or are perceived to contain, defects or errors or that are otherwise incompatible with their intended end use may not be readily marketable or could impose significant costs on us.

The design and production processes for our display solutions are highly complex. It is possible that we may produce products that contain or are perceived to contain defects or errors, or are otherwise incompatible with their intended uses. We may incur substantial costs in remedying such defects or errors, which could include material inventory write-downs. Moreover, if actual or perceived problems with nonconforming, defective or incompatible products occur after we have shipped the products, we might not only bear direct liability for providing replacements or otherwise compensating customers but could also suffer from long-term damage to our relationship with important customers or to our reputation in the industry generally.

Our product offerings are complex and may contain undetected defects, which could lead to product reworks or recalls and harm our reputation and future sales.

Our enhanced display head assemblies and subassemblies involve the production and combination of several highly technical components, many of which involve fragile materials. Our metal mesh touch sensors and camera modules are customized to meet customer specifications and involve a multi-stage process to generate a metal mesh film, imprint the touch sensor panel and blacken the conductive copper material. A defect or error could occur in any step of our production process, including defects that would not be readily apparent upon completion of production. Any failure to provide high quality and reliable products, whether caused by our own failure or failures of our suppliers or OEM customers, could damage our reputation and reduce demand for our products and services. Our products have in the past contained, and may in the future contain, defects, some of which may go undetected for some time. For example, certain displays made for one of our customer experienced peeling issues in the past. Some deficiencies in our products may only be discovered after a customer’s product incorporating our solution has been delivered to end users or may only be detected in use under certain operating conditions. Given the technical sophistication of most of our products, we may encounter problems or delays with our products, despite the technical validation processes and testing we implement. In addition, some of our product offerings may be used in connection with safety features, such as advanced driver assistance systems in cars, which may expose us to particularly heightened risks if our products are defective. Any defects discovered in our products after delivery could result in reworking of returned products or product recalls, including recalls of our customers’ products to the extent a defect is only discovered after commercial release of our customers’ products. Any defects, reworks or product recalls could result in loss of revenue, loss of customers, and increased service and product liability and/or warranty costs, any of which may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We have substantial sales and operations in China, which exposes us to risks inherent in doing business there.

Our business operations in China and our sales to Chinese customers are critical to our success. As of December 31, 2021, we had approximately 490 employees, including contractors, at our production facility in Suzhou. Moreover, in 2021, 33.5% of our revenues were derived from China. As a result, downturns in the Chinese economy could materially adversely affect our results of operations. For example China’s overall economy has been negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in the year ended December 31, 2020 as well as for the year ended December 31, 2021 and quarantines in China, particularly to date in Shanghai, have had a significant and negative effect on production, access to inventory and net working capital. The Chinese economy differs from the economies of other developed countries in many respects, including the level of government involvement, level of development, growth rate and control of foreign exchange and allocation of resources. The Chinese economy to some extent has been in a long-term transition from a planned economy to a more market-oriented economy. Despite some reforms of this nature, the government continues to exercise significant control over China’s economy by way of the allocation of resources, control over foreign currency-denominated obligations and monetary policy and provision of preferential treatment to particular industries or companies. We cannot predict the future economic policies of the Chinese government or their

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effect on the regional or global economy, or on us or our business and industry, and we cannot predict other governments’ economic policies toward China.

The imposition of tariffs and trade restrictions as a result of international trade disputes, trade wars, or changes in trade policies may adversely affect our sales and profitability. For example, in recent years the U.S. government imposed and proposed, among other actions, new or higher tariffs on specified imported products originating from China in response to what it characterizes as unfair trade practices, and China has responded by imposing and proposing new or higher tariffs on specified products including some semiconductors fabricated in the United States. There can be no assurance that these trade tensions will improve or that a broader trade agreement will be successfully negotiated between the United States and China to reduce or eliminate these tariffs or that trade tensions will not expand to other markets, including the European Union. These tariffs, and the related geopolitical uncertainty between the United States and China, and potentially other countries, may cause decreased end-market demand for our products from distributors and other customers, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. For example, certain of our future foreign customers may respond to the imposition of tariffs or threat of tariffs on products we produce in China by delaying purchase orders, purchasing products from our competitors or developing their own products. While we have been able to adapt to these risks through maintaining integrated manufacturing capabilities outside China, we may need to further expand our manufacturing operations in countries other than China, such as the Philippines, or move our operations out of China in order to meet customer demands, which would be expensive and could consume significant management resources. Ongoing international trade disputes and changes in trade policies and the political and economic environment could also impact economic activity and lead to a general contraction of customer demand. Future actions or escalations by either the United States or China, or other countries that affect trade relations may also impact our business, or that of our suppliers or customers, and we cannot provide any assurances as to whether such actions will occur or the form that they may take.

Our ability to operate in China may also be materially adversely affected by changes in Chinese laws and regulations such as those related to, among other things, taxation, environmental regulations, land use rights, intellectual property, currency controls, network security, employee benefits and overtime policies and other matters. Our operations in China are subject to numerous laws, regulations, rules and specifications relating to human health and safety and the environment. Applicable laws, rules and regulations often lack clarity and it is difficult to predict how any of these laws, rules and regulations will be enforced. If we or our employees or agents violate, or are alleged to have violated, any of these laws, rules and regulations, we or our employees could be subject to civil or criminal penalties, damages or fines, or our employees or agents could be detained, imprisoned or prevented from entering China, any of which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may be subject to product liability suits and losses in sales, which could adversely affect our business.

Products or systems we develop or inputs third parties produce for inclusion in our product offerings may have quality defects or fail to meet specifications and requirements. If such a defect were to arise, it could result in a product recall or a product liability claim against us and we have been subject to immaterial product liability claims from time to time. Some of our customers also require that we provide them with indemnification against certain liabilities, including claims of losses by their customers caused by our products. In addition, some of our product offerings may be used in connection with safety features, such as advanced driver assistance systems in cars, which may expose us to particularly heightened risks if our products are defective. Any such recalls or product liability claims could be costly, could harm our reputation, could lead to customer losses or affect our ability to sell our products and could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations and financial condition or cause our products to be less attractive to customers than those of our competitors.

We face risks relating to our contractual and statutory warranties.

We grant comprehensive contractual warranties to our customers on the products we develop and sell, which typically last for 12 months and in some cases up to 36 months and in some rare cases longer. This includes, to some extent, guarantees on the performance of our products and services for contractually determined periods of time. In addition, statutory warranties also apply to our products. In the future we could be subject to substantial claims under warranties, especially in the case of an unexpectedly large volume of product failures. As of December 31, 2021, we recognized a provision of €0.7 million related to warranties based on historical warranty data associated with similar products and services.

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Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property

We may not be able to protect our trade secrets and other confidential information.

While some of our technology is covered by patents that we own or have applied for, or is licensed under patents belonging to others, such as Corning with respect to their cold forming technology, Toppan with respect to a part of our metal mesh touch sensor technology and IMI with respect to their patent-pending 6-axis active alignment technology, much of our key technology is not protected by patents. We have devoted substantial resources to the development of our technology, trade secrets, know-how and other unregistered intellectual property rights. In order to protect our trade secrets, know-how and proprietary information, we rely in significant part on confidentiality arrangements and invention assignment agreements with our employees, licensees, independent contractors, advisers, resellers and customers. We have not entered into confidentiality arrangements or invention assignment agreements with all of our past and present employees, licensees, independent contractors, advisers, resellers and customers. This exposes us to the risk that these persons could claim that we use or infringe on their intellectual property rights. Even when we have entered into such an agreement, these arrangements may be difficult and costly to enforce and may not be effective to convey ownership of inventions, may not be effective to prevent willful or unintentional disclosure of confidential information, including trade secrets or may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of unauthorized disclosure of confidential information. Also, effective trade secret and know-how protection may not be or, due to changes in trade secret or employment law, may no longer be available in every country in which our services are available or where we have employees or independent contractors. In addition, if others independently discover trade secrets and proprietary information we would not be able to assert trade secret rights against such parties. Because we cannot legally prevent one or more other companies from developing similar or identical technology to our unpatented technology, it is likely that, over time, one or more other companies will be able to replicate our technology, thereby reducing the technological advantages we believe we possess today. Our customers, including certain licensees who are also our competitors, could misappropriate our intellectual property. If we do not adequately protect our technology or are legally unable to do so, or are unable to develop new technology that can be protected by patents or as trade secrets, we may face increased competition from other companies using technology similar to ours, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If we are unable to obtain patent protection for or otherwise protect our intellectual property rights, our business could suffer.

We rely on a combination of patents, trademarks, trade secrets and confidentiality agreements and other contractual arrangements with our employees, customers and others to protect the intellectual property that is important to our competitive position. Our success depends, in part, on our ability to obtain patent protection for or maintain as trade secrets our proprietary products, technologies and inventions and to maintain the confidentiality of our trade secrets and know-how, operate without infringing upon the proprietary rights of others and prevent others from infringing upon our business proprietary rights.

Any of our existing or future patents or other intellectual property rights may be challenged, invalidated or circumvented, or may otherwise fail to provide us with meaningful protection or any competitive advantage. In addition, our pending patent applications may not be granted, and we may not be able to obtain foreign patents or may choose not to file applications for patents corresponding to our U.S. and European patents in other jurisdictions. The laws of certain countries outside the United States and Europe may not provide the same level of patent protection as in the United States and Europe, so even if we assert our patents or obtain additional patents in countries outside of the United States and Europe, effective enforcement of such patents may not be available.

For example, the legal regime of intellectual property protection in China is still evolving. The level of protection available for intellectual property in China differs in significant respects from that of other jurisdictions and may be viewed as insufficient under certain circumstances due to local judicial protectionism, challenges in obtaining evidence and comparatively small damage awards. It is often difficult to register, maintain and enforce intellectual property rights in China. Statutory laws and regulations are subject to judicial interpretation and enforcement and may not be applied consistently due to the lack of clear guidance on statutory interpretation. Protection of intellectual property in China can be costly, and we may be unable to promptly become aware of and police any unauthorized use of our intellectual property in China. If the measures we take to protect our intellectual property under Chinese law are inadequate, we may incur losses arising from infringement of our intellectual property by parties providing services or selling products that employ our technology or are based on it and that are competitive with our services or products. In

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2016, we filed a patent dispute claim against a competitor in Chinese court, alleging infringement by the competitor and disputing ownership of four patents relating to our optical bonding process, and we ultimately withdrew the case after determining we had a low likelihood of success. We may face similar scenarios in the future.

Furthermore, patents are jurisdictional in nature and therefore only protect us in certain markets, rather than globally. In addition, patents and some other intellectual property rights are only granted for a limited period of time and our ability to compete may suffer from the expiration of some of these rights.

In addition, competitors may infringe, misappropriate or otherwise misuse our intellectual property. Costly and time consuming litigation could be necessary to enforce our intellectual property against such third-party infringement, and such litigation may be unsuccessful in whole or in part. We may not have sufficient financial or other resources to conduct such actions, which typically last years before a legal judgment or settlement is obtained. If we are not adequately protected, our competitive position and results of operations could be harmed.

We may be subject to claims that our intellectual property infringes the rights of others. These claims may be expensive and time-consuming to defend, and we may be prevented from manufacturing, licensing or selling products or marketing services that are determined to infringe upon the rights of others.

While we strive to avoid infringing the intellectual property rights of third parties, we may fail to avoid infringement claims being made against us. Our products and technology, including the technology that we obtain from third parties, may infringe the intellectual property rights of third parties. Patent applications in the United States and most other countries are confidential for a period of time until they are published, and the publication of discoveries in scientific or patent literature typically lags actual discoveries by several months or more. As a result, the nature of claims contained in unpublished patent filings around the world is unknown to us, and we cannot be certain that we were the first to conceive inventions covered by our patents or patent applications or that we were the first to file patent applications covering such inventions. Furthermore, it is not possible to know in which countries patent holders may choose to extend their filings under the Patent Cooperation Treaty or other mechanisms. In addition, patent infringements may also result from our use of processes and products, and our other activities in the ordinary course of business. We may be subject to intellectual property infringement claims from individuals, vendors and other companies, including those that are in the business of asserting patents, but are not commercializing products in our or adjacent business fields.

Any claims that our products or processes infringe the intellectual property rights of others, regardless of the merit or of the final resolution of such claims, could cause us to incur potentially significant costs in responding to, defending and resolving such claims. In connection with the enforcement of our intellectual property rights, opposing third parties from obtaining patent rights or disputes related to the validity or alleged infringement of our or third-party intellectual property rights, including patent rights, we have been and may in the future be subject or party to claims, negotiations or complex, protracted litigation. We may be prevented from using technology that a contracting party may claim was developed jointly with it. We may be required to enter into license agreements, to resolve these claims, obligating us to pay royalty fees, which may be material, to make use of third parties’ intellectual property, to develop non-infringing substitute technology (which may be time consuming, costly or ultimately unsuccessful) or to enter into costly settlement agreements on terms that are unfavorable to us, for example by preventing us from manufacturing or licensing certain of our products or technologies with respect to which we currently believe we have unfettered rights. We may also find ourselves required to indemnify our sales agents, our customers or the end users of our products or services against infringement claims made against them based on our products or services. Moreover, customers have previously requested indemnity for infringement claims that we do not believe implicate our technology. Such a refusal of indemnity can lead to a dispute with sales agents, customers and/or end users. We may also be subjected to injunctions restricting our sale of allegedly infringing products and our use of allegedly infringing technology. This could cause severe disruptions to our operations or the markets in which we compete. Furthermore, an adverse decision in any legal action involving intellectual property rights or an unfavorable settlement agreement could limit the scope of our intellectual property rights and the value of the related technology.

Therefore, any infringement by us or our licensors of the intellectual property rights of third parties may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

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We may be subject to claims that our employees have wrongfully used or disclosed alleged trade secrets and know-how of their former employers.

Certain of our past and present employees, consultants and independent contractors were previously employed at other display solutions companies, including our competitors or potential competitors. Some of these employees, consultants and independent contractors may have executed invention assignment agreements and/or non-disclosure and non-competition agreements in connection with their previous employment. Even in the absence of such agreements, such employees, consultants and independent contractors may be prohibited from sharing proprietary information or know-how of their former employers. Although we try to ensure that our employees, consultants and independent contractors do not use the proprietary information or know-how of others in their work for us, we may be subject to claims that we or these persons have used or disclosed intellectual property, including trade secrets or other proprietary information, of their former employers, which may lead to disputes regarding ownership of intellectual property created by such employees, consultants or independent contractors. We are not currently aware of any threatened or pending claims related to these matters, but in the future litigation may be necessary to defend against such claims. If we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable personnel or intellectual property rights. Even if we are successful in defending against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to management. As we expand our operations into the United States and elsewhere, we may face similar claims with regard to our future employees in these countries.

Certain of our employees and patents are subject to German legal provisions on employee inventors.

Many of our employees work in Germany and are subject to German employment law. Ideas, developments, discoveries and inventions made by such employees and consultants in connection with their work are subject to the provisions of the German Act on Employees’ Inventions, which regulates the ownership of, and compensation for inventions made by employees. Under this Act, an employer may generally demand rights to an invention made by an employee and is deemed to have done so if the employer does not ‘‘release’’ the invention within four months after the employee gives notice of the invention. The employer must pay appropriate consideration, generally in the form of a single payment or royalties on the future revenue derived from such invention, and this might have to be revised, if the circumstances on which the calculation of the consideration was based change so significantly that the previous agreement becomes unacceptable for one side. Disputes can occur, and have occurred, between our current or former employees pertaining to alleged violations of the Act on Employees’ Inventions. Any such actions may be costly to defend and may take up our management’s time and efforts whether or not we ultimately prevail in the dispute. If we are required to pay additional compensation or face other disputes under the Act on Employees’ Inventions, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

Obtaining and maintaining our intellectual property protection depends on compliance with various procedural, documentary, payment and other requirements imposed by governmental agencies, and our patent and other intellectual property protections could be reduced or eliminated if we fail to comply with these requirements.

Periodic maintenance fees on any issued patent, trademark and design and utility model are due to be paid to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and other intellectual property agencies in countries in which we currently hold patents (such as Japan, Taiwan, China and Germany), in several stages over the lifetime of these rights. The USPTO and various other governmental agencies require compliance with a number of procedural, documentary, fee payment and other similar provisions during the application process. While an inadvertent lapse can in many cases be cured by payment of a late fee or by other means in accordance with the applicable rules, there are situations in which non-compliance can result in abandonment or lapse of the patent or patent application, resulting in partial or complete loss of patent rights in the relevant jurisdiction. Non-compliance events that could result in abandonment or lapse of a patent or patent application include, but are not limited to, failure to respond to official actions within prescribed time limits, non-payment of fees and failure to properly legalize and submit formal documents. If we or our exclusive licensors fail to maintain the patents and patent applications covering our products and processes, our competitive position would be adversely affected.

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Risks Related to Our Operations

We may not be able to manufacture our products in the requested time frame or in volumes sufficient to meet customer demands, which could result in delayed or lost revenue and harm to our reputation.

Given the high level of sophisticated functionality embedded in our products, our manufacturing processes are complex. We may need significant time and resources to set up manufacturing lines and tailor their processes to meet specific customers’ product requirements. Therefore, it may take us longer than anticipated or cost us more than we had budgeted to set up our production lines.

The complexity of our manufacturing processes may also make it difficult for us to ramp up our production volumes to the levels required to fulfill our customers’ orders on time or cause us to be unable to fulfill their orders at all. These difficulties may result in lower manufacturing yields and may make it more difficult for us to scale to higher production volumes in respect of certain products or overall. If we are unable to manufacture our products in the requested time frame or in volumes sufficient to meet demand, our customers could postpone or cancel orders, or seek alternative suppliers for these products. They could also seek to replace the products they had ordered from us with products that are easier to manufacture and that accordingly produce less revenue. Any of these events would harm our reputation and ability to win additional business, adversely affecting our results of operations, including our ability to generate revenues from new customers.

If we are successful in winning additional contracts and increasing our order levels, we may need to add additional facilities in the future to meet customer demand. If we are not able to build or acquire and open such facilities in a timely and cost-effective manner, we may not be able to produce our products in volumes or at the times required. Furthermore, even if we are able to open new production facilities, if the operations at those facilities or at our existing facilities are materially disrupted, whether by pandemics, natural disasters, demonstrations, acts of terror, or otherwise, we would be unable to fulfill customer orders for the period of the disruption, we would not be able to recognize revenues on orders, we could suffer damage to our reputation, we could also suffer lost orders or cancellations, and we might need to modify our standard sales terms to secure the commitment of new customers during the period of the disruption and perhaps longer. These risks could be amplified as we seek to design and manufacture increasingly technically sophisticated products and solutions, including interactive display solutions. Depending on the cause of the disruption, we could incur significant costs to remedy the disruption and resume product shipments. Such a disruption could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We entered into working capital facilities local Chinese banks since 2015. In 2021 we entertained working capital facilities with seven Chinese banks and other international financial institutions. See Note 13. As with any financing vehicle there is the risk of a denied extension or termination before maturity which would cause liquidity constraints and limit our growth potential. Moreover, alternative facilities may or may not be available. Our intercompany invoicing and consequently our pricing may not be accepted by local tax authorities which may lead to additional tax charges. In such case, our deposit-free custom logbook with the Chinese tax authorities may be at risk. As we are an emerging growth company, liquidity is important to sustain our operations and to support future growth. Therefore, any constraints or limitations on cash supply may endanger our operations.

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We may not be able to manage the expansion of our operations effectively in order to achieve projected levels of growth.

We have expanded our operating capacity significantly in recent years, including relocating our headquarters and one of our manufacturing facilities to Nuremberg, Germany in April 2018 and installing a new production line in 2020. In October 2020, we started to build a new production facility near our headquarters in Nuremberg to build display assemblies for automotive end customers based on cold form technology in connection with a customer project. Our current business plan calls for further expansion and operating improvements, over the next several years, including cold forming production, improvement in automation in our facilities in Germany and Japan and expanding our geographical operations. For example, in 2021, we incorporated VIA optronics (Philippines), Inc.. If we do not make these expansions, in time, volume or quality, we may be unable to grow our business as quickly as we aim to and may be unable to get design wins for certain customer projects, such as the manufacturing of large displays in capacities that exceed what we are currently capable of producing. If we are unable to improve and increase automation of production, we may be unable to improve the scaling of our margin. We anticipate that further development of our infrastructure and

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an increase in the number of our employees will be required to achieve the planned broadening of our product offerings and client base and our ongoing international growth. Failing to adequately upgrade our production infrastructure, including increasing automation of our manufacturing process, or to maximize our production capacity, could have a negative impact on our ability to satisfy our customers’ orders and could adversely affect our results of operations. In addition, we must increase our engineering, marketing and services staff in multiple geographies in order to support new development, marketing and service activities to meet the needs of both new and existing customers. Our ability to successfully increase our development, marketing, organizational capabilities and service efforts is not guaranteed, and if we are not able to successfully increase such efforts, our ability to grow our business as intended may be hindered, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

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We may be unable to recoup our investments if we bring new production facilities online in times of overcapacity.

It is difficult to predict future supply and demand in the market for our display solutions. It takes up to two years to plan, finance, construct and equip a new facility. Therefore, we must make any decision to build a new facility, or to re-equip or re-organize an existing facility, with a forecast of what the supply and demand ratio is likely to be when the facility comes online. We must also consider that the supply and demand ratio may be subject to change due to changes in market conditions. In addition, our investments in new facilities may not generate a return due to there being no addressable market, or the former addressable market shifting between the time planning on the facility commences and the time the facility comes online. The capital expenditures required to construct and equip a new facility would be significant, partially as a result of our need to ensure that any new facility complies with environmental, health and safety and other regulatory requirements.

If prices decline during the time when we are ramping up production at new facilities, or if we fail to receive the necessary amount of customer orders, this could force us to decide to suspend manufacturing at these facilities. This would also prevent us from recouping our investments as planned or at all, which could have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may not be able to effectively manage the expansion of our workforce in order to support our projected levels of growth.

Because our products are often designed in close collaboration with our customers, our manufacturing and production teams, along with our sales and research and development personnel, are often actively involved in multiple stages of our customers’ product design, development and production processes. As our business continues to grow, we intend to expand our operations within these groups over the next several years, including cold forming production and improvement in automation in our facilities in Germany and Japan. To support these upgrades and enhancements, we intend to increase our engineering, marketing and services staff in multiple geographies in order to support new development, marketing and service activities to meet the needs of both new and existing customers. We may not be able to successfully manage this expansion. We may not be able to hire, retain, or accurately predict the size, skills or experience of the workforce needed to increase and support such efforts. If we fail to successfully increase our development, marketing, organizational capabilities and service efforts, we may not be able to grow our business as intended, which could adversely affect our results of operations.

Our operations could suffer if we are unable to attract and retain key management or other key scientific or other personnel.

Our success depends on the continued service and performance of our senior management and other key personnel, including personnel provided by Toppan in connection with our subsidiary, VTS. Our senior management team particularly Jürgen Eichner, our Chief Executive Officer, is critical to the global management of our business and operations, as well as to the development of our strategy and our technology. The loss of any members of our senior management team, particularly Mr. Eichner, could delay or prevent the successful implementation of our growth strategy or could otherwise adversely affect our ability to manage our company effectively and carry out our business plan. Members of our senior management team may resign at any time, even though they have service agreements with us. High demand exists for experienced senior management and other key personnel in our industry, and there can be no assurance that we will be able to retain such senior management or key personnel. We do not carry key-man insurance on any member of our senior management team. Our growth and success will also depend on our ability to attract and retain additional highly qualified scientific, technical, sales and managerial personnel as well as accounting and finance personnel with appropriate public company experience. We have experienced and expect to continue to experience

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intense competition for qualified personnel. While we intend to continue to provide competitive compensation packages to attract and retain key personnel, some of our competitors for these employees have greater resources and more experience than us, making it difficult for us to compete successfully for key personnel. If we cannot attract and retain sufficiently qualified technical personnel, we may be unable to develop and commercialize new products or new applications for existing products. Furthermore, possible shortages of key personnel (including any limitation on the performance of their duties or short term or long-term absences as a result of COVID-19), including engineers, in the regions surrounding our facilities could require us to pay more to hire and retain key personnel, thereby increasing our costs and negatively affecting our profitability.

We have identified four material weaknesses in our internal controls over financial reporting and may identify additional material weaknesses in the future that may cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations or result in material misstatements in our financial statements. If we fail to remediate our material weaknesses, we may not be able to report our financial results accurately or to prevent fraud.

Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining internal controls over financial reporting, disclosure controls, and complying with the other requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, as amended (the “Sarbanes Oxley Act”), and the rules promulgated by the SEC thereunder. Internal control over financial reporting is a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements in accordance with international financial reporting standards. A material weakness is defined as 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 a company’s annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected by the company’s internal controls on a timely basis.

In connection with the preparation and audit of our consolidated financial statements, we identified material weaknesses in our internal controls over financial reporting. For a description of the material weaknesses identified as well as our management´s remediation actions to date and plans, see “Item 15. Controls and Procedures”.

We are working to remediate our material weaknesses; however, our overall control environment is still immature and may expose us to errors, losses or fraud. At this time, we cannot estimate the costs we expect to incur to remediate these material weaknesses. These remediation measures will be time consuming, costly, and may place significant demands on our financial and operational resources. If we are unable to successfully remediate our material weaknesses, our financial statements could contain material misstatements that, when discovered in the future, could cause us to fail to meet our future reporting obligations and cause the price of our American depositary shares (“ADSs”) to decline.

Political events, trade sanctions, war, terrorism, public health issues, natural disasters and other circumstances could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and operating results.

War, terrorism, geopolitical uncertainties, public health issues (including but not limited to the COVID-19 pandemic), trade sanctions and other business interruptions have caused and could cause damage or disruption to international commerce and the global economy, and thus could have a strong negative effect on our business and our suppliers, logistics providers, contract manufacturers and customers. Our business operations are subject to interruption by natural disasters, fire, power shortages, nuclear power plant accidents, terrorist attacks, wars and other hostile acts, labor disputes, public health issues, and other events beyond our control. Such events could also decrease demand for our products, make it difficult or impossible for us or our contract manufacturers to make and deliver products to our customers or receive components from our suppliers, and create delays and inefficiencies in our supply chain. Major public health issues, including pandemics, can cause, and in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, have caused, our business to be negatively affected by, for example, more stringent employee travel restrictions, additional limitations in freight services, governmental actions limiting the movement of products between regions, delays in production ramps of new products, and disruption in the operations of our contract manufacturers and suppliers. Certain critical business operations, including certain of our suppliers and contract manufacturers, are in locations that could be affected by natural disasters. In the event of a natural disaster, losses, significant recovery time and substantial expenditures could be required to resume operations and our financial condition and operating results could be materially adversely affected. In addition, the armed conflicts involving Russia and Ukraine may have direct and indirect effects on global economic conditions and the stability of global financial markets, which could also have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

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We may undertake further mergers, acquisitions or investments to diversify or expand our business, which may pose risks to our business and dilute the ownership of our existing shareholders, and we may not realize the anticipated benefits of these mergers, acquisitions or investments.

In May 2021, we acquired Germaneers GmbH a high-tech engineering company focusing on automotive system integration and user interfaces. As part of our growth and product diversification strategy, we intend to continue to evaluate opportunities to acquire or invest in other businesses or existing businesses, intellectual property or technologies. We also intend to expand the breadth of markets we can address or enhance our technical capabilities by adding capabilities or technology that we do not have in-house, including by expanding our in-house software capabilities. We aim to become an interactive display system provider in all of our markets by combining system design, interactive displays, other hardware components and software functionality to create fully interactive display systems. We may seek to complement our organic growth by acquiring new technologies or personnel, including by acquiring other companies or assets adding value to our service offerings, particularly by enhancing our interactive solutions for automotive and/or industrial/specialized markets and software competencies relating to sensor technologies which may in the future include voice and facial recognition and other sensor technologies such as gesture, proximity and hovering.

Mergers, acquisitions or investments that we have entered into and may enter into in the future entail a number of risks that could materially and adversely affect our business, operating and financial results, including, among others:

Any acquisition that we do make would pose risks related to the integration of the acquired business or technology with our business. We cannot be certain that we will be able to achieve the benefits we expect from any particular acquisition or investment. Our failure to address these risks successfully may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Any such acquisition or investment will likely require a significant amount of capital investment, which would decrease the amount of cash available for working capital or capital expenditures. In addition, if we use our equity securities to pay for acquisitions, the value of the ADSs and the underlying ordinary shares may be diluted. If we borrow funds to finance acquisitions, such debt instruments may contain restrictive covenants that can, among other things, restrict us from distributing dividends.

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We may need to raise additional capital from time to time to meet our growth goals and may be unable to do so on attractive terms, or at all.

We intend to continue to make investments to support the growth of our business and may require additional funds to respond to business challenges, including the need to complement our growth strategy, increase market share in our current markets or expand into other markets, or broaden our technology, intellectual property or service capabilities. Accordingly, we may require additional investments of capital from time to time, and our existing sources of cash and any funds generated from operations may not provide us with sufficient capital. For various reasons, including any non-compliance with existing or future lending arrangements, additional financing may not be available when needed, or may not be available on terms favorable to us. If we fail to obtain adequate capital on a timely basis or if capital cannot be obtained on terms satisfactory to us or in an amount or manner permitted by any restrictive covenants contained in lending or other arrangements in place as of such time, we may not be able to achieve our planned rate of growth, which will adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The manufacture, supply and shipment of our products and related product costs are dependent upon effective logistics management of our global supply chain and any failure to manage these logistics could increase our costs, negatively impact our relationships with our customers and have a material adverse effect on our revenues and profitability.

The manufacture, supply and shipment of our product offerings involve multiple parties within a global supply chain, including raw material providers and component and module manufacturers who provide inputs such as cover lenses, display housing, backlights and related components. Managing the costs of logistics related to our supply chain is critical to our ability to sell our products at competitive prices. For example, fluctuations in the cost or time required to route bonding materials and touch sensors among our production facilities in Germany, China and Japan could have a material impact on the end costs of our products. We may be unable to manage the logistics of our global supply chain effectively, which may hinder us from meeting customer demands or could cause our logistics costs to increase. Any of these developments could have a material adverse effect on our revenues and profitability.

We utilize distributors to market certain of our products and solutions, and they may not be successful in doing so.

We maintain strategic relationships with distributors to market certain of our products and solutions and support certain functionality. If we are unsuccessful in establishing or maintaining our strategic relationships with these distributors or if our distributors are unable to successfully market our products, our ability to compete in the marketplace, to reach new customers and geographies or to grow our revenue could be impaired and our operating results could suffer. Although we believe we could develop relationships with new or replacement distributors if necessary, we may be unable to sufficiently educate those distributors on our product portfolio or may be unable to sufficiently incentivize their sales and distribution efforts on our behalf.

We rely on our information technology systems to manage numerous aspects of our business and customer and supplier relationships, and a disruption of these systems could adversely affect our results of operations.

We rely on our information technology, or IT, systems to manage numerous aspects of our business and provide analytical information to management. Our IT systems allow us to efficiently manage development projects, purchase products from our suppliers, provide procurement and logistic services, ship products to our customers on a timely basis, maintain cost-effective operations, provide historical and projected financial reports, comply with fiscal and regulatory requirements, and provide services to our customers. Our IT systems are an essential component of our business and growth strategies, and a disruption to our IT systems could significantly limit our ability to manage and operate our business efficiently. Although we take steps to secure our IT systems, including our computer systems, intranet and internet sites, email and other telecommunications and data networks, the security measures we have implemented have in the past not always been fully effective and our systems may be vulnerable to, among other things, damage and interruption from power loss, including as a result of natural disasters, computer system and network failures, loss of telecommunication services, operator negligence, loss of data, security breaches, hacker or denial of service attacks, computer viruses and other disruptive events. Any such disruption could adversely affect our reputation, brand and financial condition.

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Some of our employees are employed subject to local laws that are less favorable to employers than the laws of the United States.

A large portion of our employees are employed in countries in which employment laws provide greater bargaining or other rights to employees than the laws of the United States. Such favorable employment rights require us to expend greater time and expense in making changes to employees’ terms of employment or making staff reductions, and to work collaboratively with the legal representatives of the employees to effect any changes to labor arrangements. As of December 31, 2021, we had approximately 849 persons working for us under employment, service and secondment agreements, and agreements with external dispatch firms, including 53 employees from Toppan providing services to VTS pursuant to secondment agreements and the Business Assistance Agreement and 48 workers dispatched to VTS from professional dispatch firms. Our employees in Nuremberg, Germany, have established a works council in the second half of 2020 comprising of 5 members. Since the establishment of the works council, we are subject to information, consultation and cooperation obligations. For example, any proposed changes in the collective working conditions, staff changes and restructuring efforts we may pursue in the future are subject to consultation with, and eventual approval by the works council, to the extent our employees in Nuremberg are affected. We cannot rule out that some of our employees are, or will become in the future, also members of unions or will decide in the future to establish works councils at any of our other locations, in which cases we would be subject to information, consultation and cooperation obligations towards such further works councils or unions as determined by the relevant applicable laws. The limits of the local laws to which we are subject, including whether our employees decide to become members of unions or establish additional works councils at other locations, may limit management’s flexibility in making changes to elements of our business that concern our workforce. Further, any significant dispute with our employees could result in a significant disruption of our operations or higher ongoing labor costs.

Labor disruptions could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Although we believe that we have a good working relationship with our employees, a strike, work stoppage, slowdown or significant dispute with our employees could result in a significant disruption of our operations or higher ongoing labor costs. While we have not experienced any material work stoppages at any of our facilities, any stoppage or slowdown could cause material interruptions in manufacturing, and we cannot assure you that alternate qualified capacity would be available on a timely basis, or at all. As a result, labor disruptions at any of our facilities could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Workplace accidents could result in substantial remedial obligations and damage our reputation.

We have had and may in the future experience, workplace accidents or incidents. Accidents or other incidents that occur at our facilities or involve our personnel or operations, could result in claims for damages or governmental remedial action against us. The amount of any costs, including fines or damages payments that we might incur under such circumstances could substantially exceed any insurance we have to cover such losses. Any of these events, alone or in combination, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations and could adversely affect our reputation.

We may become involved in litigation and regulatory proceedings, including relating to intellectual property infringement, which could require significant attention from our management and result in significant expense to us and disruptions in our business.

We have been and may become involved in lawsuits and/or regulatory actions relating to our business, such as commercial contract claims, employment claims or other examinations and investigations. Some of these proceedings may claim significant damages or cause reputational harm. Due to the inherent uncertainties of litigation and regulatory proceedings, we cannot accurately predict the ultimate outcome of any proceeding. An unfavorable outcome could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations or limit our ability to engage in certain of our business activities. In addition, regardless of the outcome of any litigation or regulatory proceeding, any proceedings are often expensive, time-consuming, disruptive to normal business operations and require significant attention from our management.

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Risks Related to Our International Operations

Our business activities and international expansion activities outside of Germany and the European Union subject us to various risks and our failure to manage these risks could adversely affect our results of operations.

Our business is subject to a wide range of risks associated with doing business globally. Our sales outside of the European Union represented 95.6% and 97.6% of our total revenue in 2021 and 2020, respectively. One element of our growth strategy is to pursue opportunities for our business in several areas of the world, any or all of which could be adversely affected by the risks set forth below, or the risks of which we are currently unaware.

Accordingly, we face significant operational risks as a result of doing business internationally, such as:

Our failure to manage the market and operational risks associated with our international operations effectively could limit the future growth of our business and adversely affect our results of operations.

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Our international operations pose currency risks, which may adversely affect our operating results and net income.

Our operating results may be affected by fluctuations in currency exchange rates and our ability to effectively manage our currency transaction and translation risks. Our business in terms of purchases and sales is mainly processed in U.S. dollar, which is the functional currency of three of our group entities. The functional currencies of our remaining group entities are processed in their local currencies. We use Euro as the group reporting currency. As we realize our strategy to further expand internationally, our exposure to currency risks will increase. In addition, there is a possibility that currency exchange rates will experience greater fluctuation if a country currently using the Euro as its currency ceases to do so. We do not manage our foreign currency exposure in a manner that would eliminate the effects of changes in foreign exchange rates. Therefore, changes in exchange rates between these foreign currencies and the Euro will affect our revenue, cost of goods sold and operating expenses and margins, and could result in exchange losses in any given reporting period.

We incur currency transaction risks whenever we enter into either a purchase or a sale transaction using a different currency from the currency in which we receive revenue. In such cases we may suffer an exchange loss because we do not currently engage in currency forward contracts, options, swaps or other instruments to address this risk.

The volatility of exchange rates could hinder our ability to effectively manage or hedge our currency transaction risks and any volatility in currency exchange rates could have an adverse effect on our revenue or results of operations.

We are subject to international tax laws, tariffs and potential tax audits that could affect our financial results.

We are subject to international tax laws, tariffs and potential tax audits. The application of these laws and their interpretation in different jurisdictions affect our international operations in complex ways and are subject to change, and some changes may be retroactively applied. Our tax liabilities in the different countries where we operate depend, in part, on transfer pricing and administrative charges among us and our subsidiaries.

These arrangements require us to make judgments with which tax authorities may disagree, potentially resulting in the assessment of material additional taxes, penalties, interest or other charges to resolve these issues.

We also could be materially affected by the resolution of issues arising from tax audits or examinations. Tax authorities could impose additional tariffs, duties, taxes, penalties and interest on us, for example if tax audits find that permanent establishments for tax purposes exist, if net operating losses are found not to be available to offset taxable income, if the deduction of business expenses or interest expenses is denied for tax purposes, if payments are held to be subject to withholding taxes, or if taxable services are deemed to have been rendered.

German corporate income tax, trade tax and VAT tax audits for the years 2015 until 2018 are still ongoing. None of the group companies has been subject to tax audits in the U.S., Japan or in Taiwan.

Transactions that we have structured in light of current tax rules could have material and adverse consequences for us if tax rules change. Tax audits, changes in tax laws, their application and interpretation or imposition of any new or increased tariffs, duties and taxes could increase our tax burden and materially and adversely affect our sales, profits and financial condition and could have an adverse effect on our business, net assets, or results of operations. Such factors could also cause us to expend significant time and resources and/or cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial information.

Risks Related to our ADSs and Capital Structure

The price of our ADSs may be volatile and fluctuate substantially, which could result in substantial losses for purchasers of the ADSs.

The stock market generally, including our ADSs, has experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of listed companies. Broad market and industry factors may negatively affect the market price of our ADSs, regardless of our actual operating performance. The

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market price and liquidity of the market for our ADSs may fluctuate and may be significantly affected by numerous factors, some of which are beyond our control. These factors include:

We have no present intention to pay dividends on our ordinary shares in the foreseeable future and, consequently, an ADS holder’s only opportunity to achieve a return on their investment during that time is if the price of the ADSs appreciates.

We have no present intention to pay dividends on our ordinary shares in the foreseeable future. Any recommendation by our management and supervisory boards to pay dividends will depend on many factors, including our financial condition, results of operations, legal requirements and other factors. Accordingly, if the price of the ADSs declines in the foreseeable future, ADS holders will incur a loss on their investment, without the likelihood that this loss will be offset in part or at all by potential future cash dividends.

ADS holders may not receive distributions on our ordinary shares represented by the ADSs or any value for them.

Under the terms of the deposit agreement, the depositary for the ADSs has agreed to pay to ADS holders the cash dividends or other distributions it or the custodian receives on our ordinary shares or other deposited securities after deducting its fees and expenses. ADS holders will receive these distributions in proportion to the number of our ordinary shares their ADSs represent. However, in accordance with the limitations set forth in the deposit agreement, it may be unlawful or impractical to make a distribution available to holders of ADSs. In addition, distributions of rights to subscribe for additional ordinary shares or ADSs, distributions payable in cash or additional ordinary shares or ADSs at the election of the recipient or distributions of property other than cash, ordinary shares or rights to subscribe for additional ordinary shares or ADSs will only be made to holders of ADSs if we request such rights be made available to holders of ADSs. We have no obligation to take any other action to permit the distribution of the ADSs, ordinary shares, rights or anything else to holders of ADSs. This means that ADS holders may not receive the distributions we make on our ordinary shares or any value from them if it is unlawful or impractical for us to make them available. These restrictions may have a material adverse effect on the value of the ADSs.

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Holders of ADSs are not treated as shareholders of our company.

Holders of ADSs are not treated as our shareholders, unless they withdraw the shares underlying the ADSs from the depositary. The depositary is the holder of the shares underlying the ADSs. Holders of ADSs therefore do not have any rights as shareholders of our company, other than the rights that they have pursuant to the deposit agreement.

ADS holders may not be able to exercise their right to vote the shares underlying their ADSs.

Holders of ADSs may exercise voting rights with respect to the shares represented by the ADSs only in accordance with the provisions of the deposit agreement. Holders may instruct the depositary to vote the number of whole deposited shares their ADSs represent. The depositary will notify holders of shareholders’ meetings or other solicitations of consents and arrange to deliver our voting materials to holders if we ask it to. Those materials will describe the matters to be voted on and explain how holders may instruct the depositary how to vote. For instructions to be valid, they must reach the depositary by a date set by the depositary.

Holders may instruct the depositary to vote the shares underlying their ADSs. Otherwise, holders will not be able to exercise their right to vote, unless they withdraw the shares underlying the ADSs they hold. We cannot assure ADS holders that they will receive the voting materials in time to ensure that they can instruct the depositary to vote their shares. In addition, the depositary and its agents are not responsible for failing to carry out voting instructions or for the manner of carrying out voting instructions provided that any such failure is in good faith. This means that ADS holders may not be able to exercise their right to vote and there may be no remedies available to them if the shares underlying their ADSs are not voted as requested. If we do not instruct the depositary to obtain ADS holders’ voting instructions, ADS holders can still instruct the depositary how to vote, and the depositary may vote as they instruct, but it is not required to do so.

The right of holders of ADSs to participate in any future preemptive subscription rights issues or to elect to receive dividends in shares may be limited, which may cause dilution to their holdings.

Under German law, the existing shareholders have a preemptive right to subscribe for shares offered in proportion to the amount of shares they hold in connection with any offering of shares. However, a shareholders’ meeting may vote, by a majority that represents at least three quarters of the share capital represented at the meeting, to waive this preemptive right for all shareholders provided that, from the company’s perspective, there exists good and objective cause for such waiver.

Certain non-German shareholders may not be able to exercise their preemptive subscription rights in our future offerings due to the legislation and regulations of their home country. For example, ADS holders in the United States will not be entitled to exercise or sell such rights unless we register the rights and the securities to which the rights relate under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), or an exemption from the registration requirement is available. In addition, the deposit agreement provides that the depositary need not make rights available to holders unless the distribution to ADS holders of both the rights and any related securities are either registered under the Securities Act or exempted from registration under the Securities Act. We are under no obligation to file a registration statement with respect to any such rights or securities or to endeavor to cause such a registration statement to be declared effective. Moreover, we may not be able to establish an exemption from registration under the Securities Act. Accordingly, ADS holders may be unable to participate in our rights offerings and may experience dilution in their holdings. In addition, if the depositary is unable to sell rights that are not exercised or not distributed or if the sale is not lawful or reasonably practicable, it will allow the rights to lapse, in which case ADS holders will receive no value for these rights.

U.S. holders of ADSs may suffer adverse tax consequences if we are characterized as a passive foreign investment company.

A non-U.S. corporation will be classified as a passive foreign investment company, or PFIC, for U.S. federal income tax purposes for any taxable year, if either (i) 75% or more of its gross income for such year consists of certain types of ‘‘passive’’ income or (ii) 50% or more of the value of its assets (determined on the basis of a quarterly average) during such year produce or are held for the production of passive income. Passive income generally includes dividends, interest, royalties, rents, annuities, net gains from the sale or exchange of property producing such income and net foreign currency gains. In addition, a non-U.S. corporation will be treated as owning its proportionate share of the assets

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and earning its proportionate share of the income of any other corporation in which it owns, directly or indirectly, more than 25% (by value) of the stock.

Based on an analysis of our gross income and gross assets for the taxable year ending December 31, 2021, we believe that we were not a PFIC for the taxable year ending December 31, 2021. However, no assurances regarding our PFIC status can be provided for any past, current or future taxable years. The determination of whether we are a PFIC is a fact-intensive determination made on an annual basis and the applicable law is subject to varying interpretation. In particular, the characterization of our assets as active or passive may depend in part on our current and intended future business plans, which are subject to change. In addition, for our current and future taxable years, the total value of our assets for PFIC testing purposes may be determined in part by reference to the market price of our ordinary shares or ADSs from time to time, which may fluctuate considerably. Even if we determine that we are not a PFIC for a taxable year, there can be no assurance that the Internal Revenue Service, or IRS, will agree with our conclusion and that the IRS would not successfully challenge our position. Accordingly, our U.S. counsel expresses no opinion with respect to our PFIC status for any prior, current or future taxable year.

In the event we were treated as a PFIC, U.S. holders (as defined in “Item 10. Additional Information—E. Taxation—U.S. Taxation”) of the ADSs could be subject to adverse U.S. federal income tax consequences. For further discussion of the PFIC rules and the adverse U.S. federal income tax consequences in the event we are classified as a PFIC, as well as certain elections that may be available to U.S. shareholders, see the section of this annual report titled “Item 10. Additional Information—E. Taxation— U.S. Taxation—Additional United States Federal Income Tax Consequences—PFIC Rules."

U.S. investors may have difficulty enforcing civil liabilities against our company and members of our supervisory board and management board.

Certain members of our supervisory board and management board are non-residents of the United States, and all or a substantial portion of the assets of such persons are located outside the United States. As a result, it may not be possible, or may be very difficult, to serve process on such persons or us in the United States or to enforce judgments obtained in U.S. courts against them or us based on civil liability provisions of the securities laws of the United States. In addition, awards of punitive damages in actions brought in the United States or elsewhere may be unenforceable in Germany. An award for monetary damages under the U.S. securities laws would be considered punitive if it does not seek to compensate the claimant for loss or damage suffered and is intended to punish the defendant. The enforceability of any judgment in Germany will depend on the particular facts of the case as well as the laws and treaties in effect at the time. Litigation in Germany is also subject to rules of procedure that differ from the U.S. rules, including with respect to the taking and admissibility of evidence, the conduct of the proceedings and the allocation of costs. With very narrow exceptions, proceedings in Germany would have to be conducted in the German language, and all documents submitted to the court would, in principle, have to be translated into German. For these reasons, it may be difficult for a U.S. investor to bring an original action based upon the civil liability provisions of the U.S. federal securities laws against us, certain members of our supervisory board and management board in a German court. The United States and Germany do not currently have a treaty providing for recognition and enforcement of judgments (other than arbitration awards) in civil and commercial matters, though recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in Germany is possible in accordance with applicable German laws.

ADS holders may be subject to limitations on transfers of ADSs.

ADSs are transferable on the books of the depositary. However, the depositary may close its transfer books at any time or from time to time when it deems expedient in connection with the performance of its duties. In addition, the depositary may refuse to deliver, transfer or register transfers of ADSs generally when our books or the books of the depositary are closed, or at any time if we or the depositary deems it advisable to do so because of any requirement of law or of any government or governmental body, or under any provision of the deposit agreement, or for any other reason.

Our principal shareholder owns a significant percentage of our ordinary shares and will be able to exert significant influence over matters subject to shareholder approval.

Two shareholders hold approximately 66% of our outstanding ordinary shares (including ordinary shares represented by ADSs) and our largest shareholder, Coöperatief IMI Europe U.A., holds approximately 50% of our

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ordinary shares (including ordinary shares represented by ADSs). Cooperatief IMI Europe U.A. has effective control over the outcome of all matters requiring shareholder approval, including elections of members of our supervisory board, amendments to our organizational documents and the approval of any merger, spin-off, sale of assets or other major corporate transaction. We are eligible to be treated as a ‘‘controlled company’’ within the meaning of the corporate governance standards of the New York Stock Exchange. Under these corporate governance standards, a ‘‘controlled company’’ may elect not to comply with certain corporate governance requirements, including the requirements that:

We do not take advantage of any of the applicable exemptions under the New York Stock Exchange corporate governance standards except to the extent we are exempt from such standards as a foreign private issuer under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”); however, there can be no assurance that we will not elect to do so in the future if we are eligible. Coöperatief IMI Europe U.A.’s ownership position and/or our future election to utilize exemptions available to a “controlled company” may prevent or discourage unsolicited acquisition proposals or offers for our ordinary shares or ADSs that shareholders may feel are in their best interest. The interests of our major shareholders may not always coincide with the interests of other shareholders and they may act in a manner that advances their best interests and not necessarily those of other shareholders, including seeking a premium value for their ordinary shares, which might affect the prevailing market price for the ADSs.

We are limited in our ability to increase our share capital under German law, which may make it difficult for us to raise additional capital to fund our operations in a timely manner.

Under German law and according to our articles of association, an increase of our share capital requires a resolution passed at our shareholders’ meeting with both a simple majority of the share capital represented at the meeting, unless a capital increase can be executed using the authorized capital of the Company. A capital increase from authorized capital requires a resolution of the management board to such effect and the approval of the supervisory board. The aggregate nominal amount of the authorized capital created by the shareholders may not exceed one-half of the share capital existing at the time of registration of the authorized capital with the commercial register and the authorized capital may only be created for a period of up to five years. In addition, every holder of ordinary shares is generally entitled to subscription rights (commonly known as preemptive rights) relating to any new shares issued in connection with a capital increase in proportion to the number of shares he or she holds in the corporation’s existing share capital, and a minimum subscription period of two weeks must be provided for the exercise of such subscription rights, although holders of ordinary shares may resolve to exclude subscription rights under certain circumstances. Given these and other restrictions under German law, it may be difficult for us to access capital markets quickly to raise additional capital that may be needed to fund our operations. See “Item 10. Additional Information—B. Memorandum and Articles of Association.”

Rights as a shareholder in a German corporation may differ from rights as a shareholder in a U.S. corporation.

We are organized as a stock corporation (Aktiengesellschaft or AG) under the laws of Germany. The rights of shareholders of a German stock corporation under German law differ in important respects from those of shareholders of a U.S. corporation. These differences include, in particular:

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Exchange rate fluctuations may reduce the amount of U.S. dollars ADS holders receive in respect of any dividends or other distributions we may pay in the future in connection with ADSs.

We do not currently intend to declare or pay any dividends in the foreseeable future. Under German law, the determination of whether we have made sufficient profits to pay dividends is made on the basis of our unconsolidated annual financial statements prepared in accordance with German generally accepted accounting principles as set forth in the German Commercial Code (Handelsgesetzbuch). Exchange rate fluctuations may affect the amount in U.S. dollars that our shareholders receive when we declare and pay in Euros cash dividends or other cash distributions, if any. Such fluctuations could adversely affect the value of the ADSs and, in turn, the U.S. dollar proceeds that holders receive from the sale of the ADSs.

In the event that the ADSs do not qualify as ADRs under the ADR Tax Circular, U.S. treaty beneficiaries and German tax resident holders of ADSs could be subject to adverse consequences.

In the event that the ADSs do not qualify as ADRs under the ADR Tax Circular (both as defined in “Item 10. Additional Information—E. Taxation—German Taxation of ADSs—General”), the U.S. and German tax consequences of acquiring, owning and disposing of the ADSs applicable to U.S. treaty beneficiaries (as defined in “Item 10. Additional Information—E. Taxation—German Taxation of ADSs—Taxation of Non-German Resident U.S. Holders”) and German tax resident holders of ADSs could differ significantly from the U.S. and German tax consequences described in “Item 10. Additional Information—E. Taxation.” The qualification of the ADSs for German tax purposes in this case is uncertain. In particular, in the event that the ADSs fail to qualify as ADRs, U.S. treaty beneficiaries and German tax resident holders of ADSs could be subject to adverse U.S. and German tax consequences, respectively, which could include the following: (i) the U.S. treaty beneficiaries will not be entitled to claim a refund of the portion of the otherwise applicable 26.375% German withholding tax on dividends relating to the ADSs that exceeds the applicable Treaty (as defined in “Item 10. Additional Information—E. Taxation—German Taxation of ADSs—Taxation of Non-German Resident U.S. Holders”) rate and (ii) the German tax resident holders will not be entitled to any tax exemptions in relation to dividends and capital gains relating to the ADSs (see “Item 10. Additional Information—E. Taxation—German Taxation of ADSs—Taxation of German Resident Holders”).

ADSs holders may not be entitled to a jury trial with respect to claims arising under the deposit agreement, which could result in less favorable outcomes to the plaintiff(s) in any such action.

The deposit agreement governing the ADSs representing our ordinary shares provides that, to the fullest extent permitted by law, ADS holders waive the right to a jury trial of any claim they may have against us or the depositary arising out of or relating to our shares, the ADSs or the deposit agreement, including any claim under the U.S. federal securities laws.

If we or the depositary opposed a jury trial demand based on the waiver, the court would determine whether the waiver was enforceable based on the facts and circumstances of that case in accordance with the applicable state and

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federal law. To our knowledge, the enforceability of a contractual pre-dispute jury trial waiver in connection with claims arising under the federal securities laws has not been finally adjudicated by the United States Supreme Court. However, we believe that a contractual pre-dispute jury trial waiver provision is generally enforceable, including under the laws of the State of New York, which govern the deposit agreement, by a federal or state court in the City of New York, which has non-exclusive jurisdiction over matters arising under the deposit agreement. In determining whether to enforce a contractual pre-dispute jury trial waiver provision, courts will generally consider whether a party knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily waived the right to a jury trial. We believe that this is the case with respect to the deposit agreement and the ADSs.

If any holders or beneficial owners of ADSs bring a claim against us or the depositary in connection with matters arising under the deposit agreement or the ADSs, including claims under federal securities laws, such holder or beneficial owner may not be entitled to a jury trial with respect to such claims, which may have the effect of limiting and discouraging lawsuits against us and / or the depositary. If a lawsuit is brought against us and/or the depositary under the deposit agreement, it may be heard only by a judge or justice of the applicable trial court, which would be conducted according to different civil procedures and may result in different outcomes than a trial by jury would have had, including results that could be less favorable to the plaintiff(s) in any such action. Nevertheless, if this jury trial waiver provision is not permitted by applicable law, an action could proceed under the terms of the deposit agreement with a jury trial. No condition, stipulation or provision of the deposit agreement or ADSs serves as a waiver by any holder or beneficial owner of ADSs or by us or the depositary of compliance with any substantive provision of the U.S. federal securities laws and the rules and regulations promulgated thereunder.

If securities or industry analysts cease publishing research, or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, our ADS price and trading volume could decline.

The trading market for our ADSs depends in part on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. If one or more of the analysts who covers us downgrades our shares or ADSs or publishes inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, our share and ADS price may decline. If one or more of these analysts ceases coverage of our company or fails to publish reports on us regularly, demand for our shares and ADSs could decrease, which might cause our share and ADS price and trading volume to decline.

General Risks

Natural disasters and other unforeseeable events could result in delays in or cancellations of shipments of products and lead to a loss of production facilities and thereby negatively affect our business activities.

We have production sites and other operations in locations subject to natural occurrences such as severe weather and geological events that could disrupt operations. A natural disaster that results in a prolonged disruption to our operations may adversely affect our results and financial condition including preventing us from fulfilling orders and the loss of customer qualification of certain production facilities may cause us to suffer damage to our reputation.

We may be at risk for non-compliance with applicable laws and regulations, including the risk of extortion and violation of anticorruption laws.

Operating a global business, including in certain countries where corruption is considered to be widespread, requires us to comply with the laws and regulations of various jurisdictions. In particular, our operations are subject to anticorruption laws and regulations, which include the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, or the FCPA, the UK Bribery Act of 2010, and anti-bribery laws and regulations in other countries, including those having implemented the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. Anticorruption laws prohibit corporations and individuals from paying, offering to pay, or authorizing the payment of anything of value to another person, including but not limited to a government official, government staff member, political party, or political candidate in an attempt to obtain or retain business or to otherwise improperly influence a person; the laws are broad and many apply to private as well as public bribery and also penalize the receipt as well as the giving of bribes. In the course of establishing and expanding our commercial operations and seeking regulatory approvals in the EU, the United States, and internationally, we will need to establish and expand business relationships with various third parties and will interact more frequently with various officials, including regulatory authorities who may be deemed to be “foreign officials” under the FCPA or similar laws, or who may otherwise be candidates for illicit payments in exchange for improper benefits. We are subject to the risk that our employees and others over whom we have less control, such as Toppan employees who are seconded to VTS,

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distributors and other agents, may fail to comply with such laws and regulations. It is not always possible to identify and deter misconduct by our employees, distributors and other third parties, and the precautions we take to detect and prevent prohibited activity may not be effective in controlling unknown or unmanaged risks or losses or in protecting us from governmental investigations or other actions or lawsuits stemming from a failure to comply with these laws or regulations.

Our operations may also be subject to applicable laws and regulations on economic sanctions and export controls, including those administered by the United States and the EU, which are complex and may be violated inadvertently. Such laws may restrict or prohibit the export or sale of our products to certain countries or persons altogether. Changes to export and economic sanctions laws and regulations, or changes in the countries, governments, persons, or technologies targeted by such laws and regulations could result in our decreased ability to sell or export our products, and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations. If we violate any of the anti-bribery, economic sanctions, export control and abuse laws, we could be subject to fines, confiscation of profits or legal sanctions, such as termination of authorizations, licenses, concessions and financing agreements, suspension of our operations or prohibitions on contracting with public authorities. Any such violation could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, business, prospects and results of operations. In addition, any alleged violations of these laws could damage our reputation and ability to do business.

We may not have adequate insurance for potential liabilities, including liabilities arising from product warranty claims and litigation.

In the ordinary course of business, we have been, and in the future may be, subject to various product and non-product related claims, lawsuits and administrative proceedings seeking damages or other remedies arising out of our commercial operations, including litigation related to defects in our products. We maintain insurance to cover potential exposures; however, our insurance coverage is subject to various exclusions, self-retentions and deductibles, may be inadequate or unavailable to protect us fully, and may be cancelled or otherwise terminated by the insurer.

Furthermore, we face the following additional risks under our insurance coverage:

Even a partially uninsured claim of significant size, if successful, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and liquidity. Moreover, even if we successfully defend ourselves against any such claim, we could be forced to spend a substantial amount of money on litigation expenses, our management could be required to spend valuable time in the defense against these claims and our reputation could suffer, any of which could adversely affect our results of operations.

A large or a number of smaller product liability judgments against us could exceed our insurance coverage and might result in a material loss to us. In addition, publicity resulting from an actual or perceived problem with one of our products could harm our reputation and reduce demand for our product offerings. Actual or threatened product liability suits may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Changes in data privacy and data protection laws and regulations, or any failure to comply with such laws and regulations, could adversely impact our business.

Our business is subject to a wide variety of laws and regulations in the United States and internationally designed to protect the privacy of clients, customers, employees and other third parties. The interpretation and application of such laws and regulations is uncertain and evolving and it is possible that changes in the interpretation of

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these laws could require us to change our practices. For example, the EU General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, which went into effect in May 2018, imposes a range of new compliance obligations and increases financial penalties for non-compliance and extends the scope of the EU data protection law to all companies processing data of EU residents, regardless of the company’s location. We are currently in compliance with the data protection and privacy regulations under the GDPR and have engaged a professional adviser to serve as our external compliance officer as permitted by the GDPR. Complying with the GDPR and other privacy and data protection laws could cause us to incur substantial costs or require us to change our business practices in a manner adverse to our business. In addition, if we fail to comply with these laws or regulations, we could be subject to significant litigation, monetary damages, regulatory enforcement actions or fines in one or more jurisdictions.

Our business and operations could suffer in the event of cybersecurity breaches or disruptions to our information technology environment.

As with all enterprise information systems, our systems, which contain critical information about our business (including intellectual property and confidential information of our customers, vendors and employees), could be penetrated by outside parties intent on extracting information, corrupting information, or disrupting business processes.

Despite our efforts to protect sensitive information and confidential and personal data and to comply with and implement data security measures, our facilities and systems may be vulnerable to security breaches and other data loss, including cyber-attacks. It is not possible to predict the impact on our business of the future loss, alteration or misappropriation of information in our possession related to us, our employees, former employees, customers or suppliers. Depending on their nature and scope, these threats could potentially lead to improper use of our systems and networks, manipulation and destruction of proprietary or key data or product non-compliance. Unauthorized access and breaches of our security measures could disrupt our business operations and could result in failures or interruptions in our computer systems and in the loss of assets (including our intellectual property and confidential business information). Such breaches could also result in inadvertent disclosure, or unapproved dissemination of proprietary, sensitive or confidential information about the company, our employees, our vendors, or our customers and could result in litigation, violations of various data privacy regulations in some jurisdictions, and also potentially result in liability to us. This could damage our reputation, or otherwise harm our business, financial condition, or results of operations. Additionally, the devotion of additional resources to the security of our information technology systems in the future could significantly increase the cost of doing business.

We are subject to environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, which could subject us to liabilities, increase our costs or restrict our business or operations in the future.

Our manufacturing operations and our products are subject to a variety of environmental, health and safety laws and regulations in each of the jurisdictions in which we operate or sell our products. These laws and regulations govern, among other things, the handling and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes (such as the cleaning chemicals used in our production facilities and the chemicals used in the copper etching process for our metal mesh touch sensors) employee health and safety and the use of hazardous materials in, and the recycling of, our products. Failure to comply with present and future environmental, health and safety requirements, or the identification of contamination, could cause us to incur substantial costs, monetary fines, civil or criminal penalties and curtailment of operations.

The identification of environmental issues, including instances of non-compliance and/or accidents, could subject us to substantial remedial obligations or liabilities, increase our costs, or restrict our business or operations in the future.

We are subject to a number of environmental and health and safety laws and regulations that have become more stringent over time. More vigorous enforcement of current environmental, health and safety requirements by regulatory agencies, the enactment of more stringent laws and regulations or other unanticipated events may result in the identification of presently unidentified environmental conditions, or liabilities of which we are currently unaware. The results of these environmental conditions or liabilities could restrict our ability to use or expand our facilities, require us to incur additional expenses or require us to modify our manufacturing processes or the contents of our products. This could have a material adverse effect on our reputation, business, financial condition and results of operations.

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As a public company, we are subject to additional regulatory compliance, including Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Any failure to comply could have a significant and adverse effect on our business and reputation.

As a public company and for as long as we are an “emerging growth company” under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (the “JOBS Act”), we are eligible to take advantage of exemptions from various reporting requirements. See “We are eligible to be treated as an “emerging growth company”, as defined in the JOBS Act, and we cannot be certain if the reduced disclosure requirements applicable to emerging growth companies will make our ADSs less attractive to investors” for more information. Section 404(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, as amended, or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, requires that beginning with this Annual Report, management assess and report annually on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting and identify any material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting. Although Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires our independent registered public accounting firm to issue an annual report that addresses the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting, we have opted to rely on the exemptions provided in the JOBS Act, and consequently, will not be required to comply with SEC rules that implement Section 404(b) until such time as we are no longer an emerging growth company. As a result, for so long as we are entitled to avail ourselves of such relief or exemptions we will not obtain an independent assessment of the effectiveness of our internal controls which could detect problems that our management’s assessment might not and our management cannot guarantee that our internal controls and disclosure controls will prevent all possible errors or all instances of fraud. Once we cease to be an emerging growth company, Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, or Section 404(b), requires our independent registered public accounting firm to issue an annual report that addresses the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. If we are not able to establish and maintain an effective system of internal controls and otherwise implement the requirements of Section 404(b) in a timely manner or with adequate compliance, our independent registered public accounting firm may issue an adverse opinion due to ineffective internal controls over financial reporting and we may be subject to sanctions or investigation by regulatory authorities, such as the SEC.

We need to continue to dedicate internal resources, potentially engage outside consultants and adopt a detailed work plan to assess and document the adequacy of internal control over financial reporting, continue to improve control processes as appropriate, validate through testing that controls over financial reporting are functioning as documented and implement a continuous reporting and improvement process for internal control over financial reporting. Misstatements or restatements in our financial statements or an adverse assessment by management about the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting, as is currently the case, or an adverse assessment from our auditors about the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting in the future, could result in a negative reaction in the financial markets due to a loss of confidence in the reliability of our financial statements. In addition, we have incurred, and expect to continue to incur significant costs to improve our internal controls system and to hire additional qualified personnel. This reporting requirement could also make it more difficult or more costly for us to obtain certain types of insurance, and we may be forced to accept reduced policy limits and coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain the same or similar coverage. Any such action could negatively affect our business and reputation. To achieve compliance with Section 404, we have been, and will continue to be engaged in documenting and evaluating our internal control over financial reporting, which is both costly and challenging.

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There is a risk that we will not be able to conclude that our internal control over financial reporting is effective as required by Section 404, as is currently the case, which could result in an adverse reaction in the financial markets due to a loss of confidence in the reliability of our financial statements. As a result, the market price of the ADSs could be negatively affected, and we could become subject to investigations by the stock exchange on which the ADSs are listed, the SEC or other regulatory authorities, which could require additional financial and management resources, and have a significant and adverse effect on our business and reputation.

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If we are unable to effectively comply with the regulations applicable to public companies or if we are unable to produce accurate and timely financial statements, which may result in material misstatements in our financial statements or possible restatement of financial results, our stock price may be materially adversely affected, and we may be unable to maintain compliance with the listing requirements of The New York Stock Exchange. Any such failures could also result in litigation or regulatory actions by the SEC or other regulatory authorities, loss of investor confidence, delisting of our securities, harm to our reputation and diversion of financial and management resources from the operation of our business, any of which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and growth prospects.

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There is no guarantee that we will be able to implement adequate internal controls over financial reporting in a timely manner, or at all. Consequently, we may be unable to detect and react to risks arising in the course of our business. In addition, any failure to establish or maintain an effective system of internal controls over financial reporting could limit our ability to report our financial results accurately and in a timely manner or to detect and prevent fraud.

An inability to adapt our internal controls over financial reporting as well as our reporting and risk management procedures to the requirements of a public company could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. See ‘‘Item 3. Key Information—D. Risk Factors’’ for more information.

We have incurred increased costs as a result of operating as a public company, and our management has been required to devote substantial time to new compliance initiatives and corporate governance practices. As a public company, and particularly if we were to lose our status as an emerging growth company in the future, we will incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”), the listing requirements of The New York Stock Exchange and other applicable securities rules and regulations impose various requirements on public companies, including establishment and maintenance of effective disclosure and financial controls and corporate governance practices. Our management and other personnel will need to devote a substantial amount of time to these compliance initiatives. Moreover, these rules and regulations will increase our legal and financial compliance costs and will make some activities more time-consuming and costly. These rules and regulations are often subject to varying interpretations, in many cases due to their lack of specificity, and, as a result, their application in practice may evolve over time as new guidance is provided by regulatory and governing bodies. This could result in continuing uncertainty regarding compliance matters and higher costs necessitated by ongoing revisions to disclosure and governance practices.

As a foreign private issuer, we are exempt from a number of rules under the U.S. securities laws and are permitted to file less information with the SEC than U.S. companies. This may limit the information available to holders of ADSs.

We are a “foreign private issuer,” as defined in the SEC rules and regulations, and, consequently, we are not subject to all of the disclosure requirements applicable to companies organized within the United States. For example, we are exempt from certain rules under the Exchange Act that regulate disclosure obligations and procedural requirements related to the solicitation of proxies, consents or authorizations applicable to a security registered under the Exchange Act. In addition, members of our management board and supervisory board and our principal shareholders are exempt from the reporting and ‘‘short-swing’’ profit recovery provisions of Section 16 of the Exchange Act and related rules with respect to their purchases and sales of our securities. Moreover, we are not required to file periodic reports and financial statements with the SEC as frequently or as promptly as U.S. public companies. Accordingly, there may be less publicly-available information concerning our company than there is for U.S. public companies.

As a foreign private issuer, we are required to file an annual report on Form 20-F each year and furnish reports on Form 6-K relating to certain material events promptly after we publicly announce these events. However, although we intend to issue quarterly financial information, because of the above exemptions for foreign private issuers, we are not required to do so, and, therefore, holders of ADSs will not be afforded the same protections or information generally available to investors holding shares in public companies organized in the United States.

As a foreign private issuer, we are not subject to certain New York Stock Exchange corporate governance rules applicable to U.S. listed companies.

We rely on provisions in the New York Stock Exchange Listed Company Manual that permit us to follow our home country corporate governance practices with regard to certain aspects of corporate governance. This allows us to follow German corporate law and the German Corporate Governance Code, which differ in significant respects from the corporate governance requirements applicable to U.S. companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In accordance with our New York Stock Exchange listing, our Audit Committee is required to comply with or satisfy an exemption from the provisions of Section 301 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Rule 10A-3 of the Exchange Act, both of which are also applicable to listed U.S. companies. Because we are a foreign private issuer, however, we generally are permitted to follow home country practice in lieu of the corporate governance standards provided in the New York Stock Exchange Listed Company Manual. In particular, we are not required to comply with the requirements that the members of our Audit Committee satisfy financial literacy standards, that a majority of the members of our supervisory board must be independent, that our Audit Committee and Compensation and Nomination Committee adopt written charters and that we adopt and disclose corporate governance guidelines. If some investors find the ADSs less attractive as a result of

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these differences, there may be a less active trading market for the ADSs and the price of the ADSs may be more volatile.

We may lose our foreign private issuer status in the future, which could result in significant additional costs and expenses.

While we currently qualify as a foreign private issuer, the determination of foreign private issuer status is made annually on the last business day of an issuer’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter. In the future, we would lose our foreign private issuer status if we fail to meet the requirements necessary to maintain our foreign private issuer status as of the relevant determination date. Our foreign private issuer status will be tested on June 30 of each year and in the future we may lose our status. This could occur if, for instance, a majority of our shareholders of record were U.S. citizens or residents and a majority of our executive officers or directors were U.S. citizens or residents or if a majority of our assets were located in the United States. The regulatory and compliance costs to us under U.S. securities laws as a U.S. domestic issuer may be significantly more than the costs we incur as a foreign private issuer. If we cease to be a foreign private issuer, we could be required to file periodic reports and registration statements on U.S. domestic issuer forms with the SEC, which are more detailed and extensive in certain respects than the forms available to a foreign private issuer. We would be required under current SEC rules to prepare our financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP rather than IFRS. Such conversion of our financial statements to U.S. GAAP would involve significant time and cost, and we would still be required to prepare financial statements in accordance with IFRS. In addition, we may lose our ability to rely upon exemptions from certain corporate governance requirements on United States stock exchanges that are available to foreign private issuers such as the ones described above and exemptions from procedural requirements related to the solicitation of proxies. Our financial statements in this annual report were prepared in accordance with IFRS, which differs from U.S. GAAP. Items on the financial statements of a company prepared in accordance with IFRS may not reflect its financial position or results of operations in the way they would be reflected had such financial statements been prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

We are an “emerging growth company”, as defined in the JOBS Act, and we cannot be certain if the reduced disclosure requirements applicable to emerging growth companies will make our ADSs less attractive to investors.

We are an emerging growth company, as defined in the JOBS Act. For as long as we continue to be an emerging growth company, we may take advantage of exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not emerging growth companies, including (1)  an exemption from the auditor attestation requirement in the assessment of our internal control over financial reporting pursuant to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; (2) to the extent that we no longer qualify as a foreign private issuer, (a) reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements; and (b) exemptions from the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation, including golden parachute compensation; and (3) an exemption from inclusion of critical audit matters in the auditor’s report

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We may take advantage of these provisions for up to five years or such earlier time that we are no longer an emerging growth company. We would cease to be an emerging growth company if we have more than $1.07 billion in annual revenue, have more than $700 million in market value of our shares held by non-affiliates, or issue more than $1.0 billion of nonconvertible debt over a three-year period. We may choose to take advantage of some but not all of these reduced burdens.

A further or continued slowdown in the global economy could materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

A further or continued slowdown in the global economy could adversely affect demand in our markets and negatively impact the electronic products sales from which we generate our income. A further or continued global economic downturn could also lead to a prolonged slowdown in our business, with side effects including significant decreases in orders from our customers, insolvency of key suppliers resulting in raw material constraints and product delays, inability of customers to obtain credit to finance purchases of our products and/or customer insolvencies and counterparty failures negatively impacting our operations. In particular, a global semiconductor chip supply shortage has had, and is continuing to have, wide-ranging effects across multiple industries, particularly the automotive industry. Any such increase, supply interruption or shortage could materially and negatively impact our business, prospects, financial condition and operating results. In addition, a further or continued downturn in the economy could slow down the

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adoption of new technologies by our customers or cause our customers to shift their purchases to lower cost, less demanding technologies as opposed to more expensive, newer technologies we may develop. Because of such factors, we believe the level of demand for our products and projections of future revenue and operating results will be difficult to predict. If any economic downturn occurs in the future or the current downturn worsens or is prolonged, our business, results of operations and financial condition may be affected materially and adversely. Further, an increase in inflation could cause our costs for parts and components, labor costs, raw materials and other operating costs to increase, which would adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations. For example an increase of 1% of material costs would result in a marginal deduction of €1.2 million, if we could not offset this increase by other measures or increase the sales price.

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Our metal mesh touch sensor technology enables high precision functionality and is based on a metal grid patterned on a transparent electrode base film that can be laminated to virtually any type, size and shape of cover lens material. In addition to our proprietary technologies and processes, we have expertise in working with collaborators to implement specialized production methods, such as cold forming technology, that enable innovation in product development. We custom-design camera modules for contract manufacturing by IMI, an affiliate of our majority shareholder and commercial partner, for integration into our solutions or our customers’ end-solutions, such as driver monitoring systems. We believe our suite of differentiated technologies and our related intellectual property, engineering expertise and commercial collaborations give us a competitive edge.

As of December 31, 2021 we had over 580 projects in process, either in the acquisition, development or industrialization phase or in production, for a combination of existing and potential new customers.

For the year ended December 31, 2020, we generated revenue, net loss and EBITDA of €152.6 million, €3.6 million and €6.3 million, respectively, and for the 12 months ended December 31, 2021, we generated revenue, net loss and EBITDA of €180.8 million, €11.4 million and a loss of € 3.3 million, respectively. In our segments display solutions and sensor technologies we generated revenue of €127.1 million and €25.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 and €154.7 million and €26.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, respectively. Due to continuous ramp ups in the automotive end-market our performance in 2021 may not be indicative of our full-year performance 2022. We are headquartered in Nuremberg, Germany and had over 800 staff working on our sites worldwide as of December 31, 2021, including through secondment and service agreements as well as agreements with professional dispatch firms. We maintain production facilities in Germany, China and Japan and, through our subsidiaries, operate sales offices in Taiwan and the United States as well as R&D facilities on the Philippines. In both – 2020 and 2021,we served over 80 customers around the world.

Our Competitive Strengths

We believe the following key strengths will help us to maintain and enhance our competitive position:

Proprietary bonding materials, patented processes and innovative technology. We believe that our proprietary silicone-based bonding material, patented optical bonding processes and metal mesh touch sensor technology as well as camera module design competence and in-house design capabilities are key enablers of our success in our target end-markets. We have a differentiated portfolio of patented optical bonding and metal mesh touch sensor technology and in-house manufacturing capabilities. In combination with VTS, as of December 31, 2021, we had an aggregate of 135 granted patents and 20 additional pending patent applications relating to our optical bonding processes, metal mesh touch sensor technology and component parts used in our customized production equipment. VIA bond plus is our proprietary silicone-based bonding material utilized for all of our bonding applications. In contrast to organic substances such as acrylates, VIA bond plus is repairable, non-shrinking, non-yellowing, environmentally friendly and stable at extreme temperatures. Max VU is our patented dry-bonding process that enables display head assembly without potentially damaging mechanical force, thereby increasing production yield, reducing potential LCD damage and minimizing undesired optical side effects. In addition, our copper-based metal mesh touch sensor technology offers significantly higher conductivity that enhance touch performance, including stylus/pen sensitivity and glove functionality. Cutting-edge technology in viewing and sensing applications as well as a combination of those technologies improves interactive display solutions, for example driver monitoring and surround view systems in

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automobiles. The key technical advantages of our camera modules and sensing applications include custom design, thermal management, durability, and access to IMI’s patent-pending 6-axis active alignment technology.

Technological expertise well-suited for complex applications and demanding environments. We are a pioneer in designing and developing customizable display solutions that address the most demanding technological and environmental challenges. These challenges include, but are not limited to, bright ambient light, vibration and shock, extreme temperatures, condensation, dust and other specialized conditions, as well as the need for enhanced touch sensitivity, curved form factors and designs that incorporate multiple interactive displays under a single formed cover lens. Our technological expertise in combination with our deep customer and commercial partner collaborations, including our collaboration with Corning, with respect to cold form glass technology, enables us to meet these challenges and act as a sole source supplier for certain customers, including, for example, select customers in ruggedized applications and the automotive industry. We continue to dedicate significant research and development resources to address these challenges and expand our interactive display solutions capabilities, touch sensor technology, as well as camera module design and related software capabilities. Further, we leverage the experience we have gained in the high-end consumer market, which is generally characterized by early adoption of new technologies and shorter product life cycles, to anticipate industry trends and innovate solutions for our automotive and industrial/specialized applications markets.

Efficient global production with integrated, automated and scalable capacity. With our modern production sites in Germany, China and Japan, we have the ability to meet customers’ specific requirements with regards to design, volume and manufacturing location. Our production sites in Germany and China operate on an integrated basis so that a project initiated in one site can be moved to another site without needing to incur costly or time-consuming delays in production site customization, which enables more nimble production capacity. Our flexible production lines can provide solutions for a wide range of display screen sizes. Our bonding facilities are equipped with manual, semi-automated and fully automated production lines capable of handling various production volumes, from specialized small-batch runs to high volume production. We leverage our customized equipment and manufacturing knowledge to quickly clean, re-tool and ramp up our production lines to maximize utilization.

Highly integrated supply chain for our core technology. We design and/or manufacture the majority of the subassemblies (e.g., enhanced displays, touch modules, display touch assemblies and camera modules) used in our interactive display systems and purchase specific components from third parties (e.g., camera sensors or LCD open cells), including IMI, an affiliate of our majority shareholder, as needed. This provides us with flexibility to produce a wide range of metal mesh sensors, which enables us to offer a broad selection of products to our customers to fit their particular needs. In addition, our largely integrated models provide our customers with their own production efficiencies to the extent that they opt to use us as their single source supplier for interactive displays. Our business model also allows us to integrate more of our own metal mesh technology into the interactive display systems that we produce. We believe the level of our supply chain integration differentiates us from our competitors and adds value to our production capabilities. Our key raw materials are silicone, glass and plastics in addition to key components like LCDs. The prices for LCDs are currently volatile, affected by the global IC shortage which also reduces the available quantities. A series of strategic partnerships with suppliers helps us overcome volatile pricing in components like LCDs and also the availability of raw materials, in particular silicone.

Early and deep design collaboration with Original Equipment Manufacturers. Due to the increasing integration of display, touch, and/or camera module functionality into novel design assemblies, we often engage with OEMs, either directly or through third-party suppliers, early in their design and development processes. We utilize our deep engineering and research and development resources and operating expertise to partner with OEMs on product design, qualification, manufacturing and testing and collaborate with them to provide comprehensive and customized solutions that meet their specific requirements. We believe this approach creates a competitive advantage for us, as it has enabled us to form long-term relationships with our OEM customers and it has provided us with an understanding of the OEMs’ technology roadmaps, allowing us to develop innovative and advanced solutions to meet their current and future needs. The combination of our technological expertise and our collaborative relationships allows us to develop new applications, such as touch-enabled controls on an automotive center console, and enables us to be a sole source supplier for certain OEMs.

Proven engineering and experienced management team. We have assembled a team of talented technical professionals with significant knowledge and expertise across our technologies. We also have an experienced global

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management team with extensive expertise in enhanced display solutions, system integration and manufacturing, and a strong track record of management experience at companies.

Commitment to innovation. We have committed significant resources in recent periods to technological advancements in our product offerings, including acquiring touch sensor technology from VTS in 2018 and enhancing our camera module development capabilities in 2019. Such technological advancements include our interactive display solutions which leverage our expertise in display solutions and touch sensor technology, as well as camera module design and related software capabilities. We believe that interactive display solutions will be critical to support the development of advanced and complex applications, such as advanced driver assistance systems, and we believe that we are well positioned to meet the next generation of innovation challenges for these technologies. In 2021 we expanded our competencies and capabilities by acquiring Germaneers, a high-tech engineering company focused on automotive system integration and user interfaces.  Further, in 2021 we formed a strategic partnership with SigmaSense, a global leader in touch sensing performance. In 2021, we received the award for “Best Technology Innovation Value Creation Strategy-Germany” by Capital Finance International (“CFI.co”). CFI.co is a print journal and online resource that reports on business, economics and finance. Each year, CFI.co seeks out individuals and organizations that contribute significantly to the convergence of economies and truly add value for all stakeholders.

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Our Growth Strategy

Our goal is to become a leading provider of interactive display solutions, in particular to OEMs and their Tier-1 suppliers, specifically within the automotive and industrial/specialized markets, and to continue to deliver innovative products to our customers in the consumer end-market. The key elements of our strategy to achieve this goal are:

Expand our interactive display systems capabilities. We aim to expand our capabilities to serve as an interactive display system provider in the automotive, consumer electronics and industrial/specialized applications markets by combining system design, camera modules, software functionality and other hardware components. We plan to achieve this goal by utilizing our extensive intellectual property portfolio, process know-how, and optical bonding and metal mesh touch sensor and camera module technologies to expand our in-house technological capabilities. We also plan to expand our research and development efforts through increased investment in our engineering and software development activities, including the hiring of additional personnel. We may also seek to augment our solutions by acquiring new technologies and expertise with an initial focus on embedded systems and software development, including by acquiring other companies or assets, hiring technical teams or entering into strategic alliances. In 2021, we expanded our competencies and capabilities by acquiring Germaneers, a high-tech engineering company-focused on automotive system integration and user interfaces.  In 2021, we also formed a strategic partnership with SigmaSense, a global leader in touch sensing performance.   

Leverage our metal mesh technology for touch-enabled displays. We believe our metal mesh touch sensor technology is particularly well-suited for large display sizes and flexible form applications, and we intend to accelerate its broader adoption across our end-markets. Our goal is to expand our touch sensor technology beyond the consumer market by focusing on embedding metal mesh touch displays into the product offerings of new and existing automotive and industrial/specialized customers. To accomplish this, we intend to leverage our ability to produce both the electrode base film and related metal mesh touch sensors, which enables us to offer our customers both component parts as well as complete display solutions. We believe offering this optionality positions us to become a one-stop touch solutions provider. In addition, to increasingly attract higher margin solutions for automotive and industrial/specialized customers, we also intend to leverage our ability to customize our metal mesh touch sensor technology and integrate customized touch sensors into our interactive display solutions. We expect that an increasing number of these customers will adopt our in-house metal mesh display touch sensor technology as high-precision touch functionality continues to become more desired by end users.

Deepen our existing customer base. We intend to expand our relationships with existing customers across our three markets—automotive, consumer and industrial/specialized—and our aim is to capture an increasing amount of their business across the technologies that we offer, with a special focus on interactive display business. Our objective is to be the supplier of choice and to service all of our customers’ needs in this space. To achieve this, we plan to continue leveraging and developing our technological capabilities, engineering talents and sales and marketing proficiency. For example, with respect to our automotive customers, we are increasingly collaborating in the early stages of the OEM design and development process on interactive display systems for car interiors, which have become, and we believe will continue to be, differentiating factors for the driver experience. We are similarly engaged at early stages with our

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industrial/specialized customers in order to provide them with highly customized solutions for their projects. We expect to convert these close, early-stage collaborations for higher margin solutions into even deeper long-term relationships with customers. With respect to our consumer customers, we see significant potential to increase our share of their business in the areas of display, touch and display head assembly, especially in light of the recent surge in remote working, which has further increased demand for the types of products that house our components.

Continue to expand our customer base. We intend to acquire new customers particularly within our automotive and industrial/specialized markets. We believe we are well-positioned to further penetrate these markets given our technological expertise, our differentiated touch sensor technology, our ability to produce products for use in demanding environments, our collaboration with Corning to utilize cold forming technology, our increasing focus on developing advanced camera modules and related software and our strong reputation within the automotive industry. We believe our technological capabilities, production know-how and research and development expertise will enable us to continue to improve our products’ functionality and performance and will facilitate our ability to develop products and enhancements, enable new applications and expand our customer base within our core end-markets.

Industry Overview

Digital displays have become pervasive in everyday life. Technological advancements, quality improvements and cost reductions have collectively helped to make displays ubiquitous in nearly every industry. In response to the growing demand and broadening applications of display technology, optical bonding, touch sensor and camera module integration technologies have become critical to achieving the diverse and highly specific requirements of customers in various end-markets. These products may be offered as stand-alone products or may be fully integrated into an interactive display system. Advanced driver-assistance systems, or ADAS, is an example of technological innovation in the automotive industry which utilizes these integrated technologies. In addition, ADAS uses software systems to support the automobile operator’s decision-making process. As technologies advance, these software systems will be capable of replacing human-operator decision-making and may support fully autonomous drive functionality. This trend will increase the importance of the electronic control unit and related software and applications that are included in interactive display systems.

Optical Bonding and Display Enhancement

Optical bonding is a process in which a clear, optical-grade adhesive, such as silicone or acrylate, is placed between various components of the DHA, which may include an LCD panel, touch sensor layer and cover lens, to bind the components of the DHA and eliminate the presence of an air gap. It is an alternative process to the traditional method of applying an adhesive tape or material around the edge of the display, which leaves a layer of air in between the various components. Displays that contain an air gap generally have lower optical performance (e.g., lack of sunlight readability, lower brightness) due to reflections occurring at the internal optical surfaces of a display assembly (such as the LCD panel and cover lens). Optical bonding eliminates nearly all internal reflection due to better matching of the index of refraction of the optical surfaces. A number of benefits can be achieved by using optical bonding rather than traditional methods, such as reduced internal reflection that results in improved readability while reducing backlight power requirements, preventing moisture and impurities from penetrating the display assembly stack, and reducing sensitivity to shock and vibration. As a result, displays with optical bonding are generally easier to read and more durable, and facilitate a longer battery life. Optical bonding also results in a higher degree of stability of displays, which permits thinner displays to be produced. Importantly, optical bonding can be used with many types of display technologies, including the two most common types, LCD and Organic Light Emitting Diode, or OLED, and new microLED technology. As such, optical bonding is becoming the de facto standard for a wide range of display solutions. The clarity achieved with optical bonding enables readable in sunlight. In addition, our technology allows us to optimize the optical film stack, increase backlight brightness and apply film to the glass, which can add a transflective component, so that the light that is not reflected on the surface of the display can enter and support the backlight system.

Touch Sensors

The global market for touch-enabled displays has gained significant momentum over the past few years as users have adopted the simplicity of point and touch as a mode of input. In addition, it has become less costly to integrate touch sensors directly into a display due to, among other things, decreased component costs.

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First generation resistive touch sensor technology required pressure to complete a circuit between electrode layers. As a result, this legacy technology was only responsive to touch when pressure was applied by objects such as a fingertip or a stylus pen, leading to slow response time, less precision and generally an inability to respond to multiple touchpoints.

In recent years, the touch technology market has focused on projective capacitive, or PCAP, touch sensor technologies. PCAP touch screens use two transparent electrode layers that are placed between a cover lens and the display. A touch is detected when a touching object (such as a fingertip or pen) changes the capacitive field created by the combination of two electrode layers oriented on the x- and y-axes rather than by applying physical pressure to the cover lens. The electrode layers are designed in a specific pattern (typically a grid for metal mesh sensors), with the potential points of touch recognition corresponding to the number of intersections between the rows and columns contained within the grid. Capacitive touch screens can be self-capacitive (meaning the device only recognizes a single touch point at a time) or mutual capacitive (meaning the device can recognize multiple touch locations simultaneously).

Metal mesh is a type of projected capacitive PCAP technology in which the electrode layer is made of a very thin layer of a conductive metal grid, either copper or silver. Compared with indium tin oxide, or ITO, a conductive electrode material used in traditional PCAP technologies, metal mesh provides certain advantages, including higher conductivity and a higher tolerance to bending, while maintaining the same transparency and providing more accurate touch functionality across multiple touch locations. The advantages of using metal mesh technology are well-suited for large display sizes and flexible form factors, which are currently costlier to produce when using existing PCAP technology. The performance of a metal mesh touch sensor is largely dependent upon the conductive metal utilized in the electrode layer, such as copper or silver. While some of our competitors use silver, we believe the physical properties of copper give it a number of advantages over silver, such as higher durability and reliability, lower cost and lower tendency to oxidize, which causes the metal to lose efficiency as an electrical conductor. While there are greater technological challenges to working with copper as opposed to silver, such as achieving optical transparency with a darker material, we believe the benefits of using copper outweigh the challenges.

Cameras

Cameras have been traditionally used for surveillance or viewing applications. As camera module technology has developed, cameras are also increasingly being used as sensors to detect traffic signs, people, cars and other objects. This technology depends on a clean image covering the desired viewing angle and algorithms to detect objects in the camera’s image stream. Like our interactive system displays, cameras are sensitive to environmental conditions, in particular heat. Heat resistance is critical to camera performance as heat impacts image quality and can disrupt the precisely designed and aligned camera lens. We custom design our camera modules to ensure proper lens alignment as a part of our production process. In addition, we use a “bare die” sensor, or an unpackaged sensor, in our camera modules. The absence of senor packaging enhances camera module performance because it allows us to achieve a smaller sensor footprint within the camera module as compared to a packaged part and also brings the thermal conductive potting material used in our module into direct contact with the sensor’s semiconductor which is more efficient for regulating temperature of the component thereby maintaining image quality and functionality.

Electronic Control Unit

The electronic control unit is a device responsible for controlling the interactive display system. All displays, camera modules and touch screens are connected to the electronic control unit. We develop drivers for our components (display, touch, camera module) to achieve maximum performance. Depending on a customer’s need, we develop functions like hovering, gesture recognition for touch screens, glove compatibility or add commercially available library elements to support other functions such as object recognition.

Interactive Display System

An interactive display system is comprised of several elements: a display, camera module and touch sensors with an ECU, allowing the user to interact with a display and, in some cases, allowing the display to observe and react to the user or other external inputs.

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Our Market Opportunity

The proliferation of tablets, smartphones and other personal devices has increased the prevalence of displays in the consumer market, while the rising demand for dynamic visual communication, the increasing use of interactive displays and lower costs for these displays are driving the growth of displays in non-traditional verticals beyond the consumer electronics end-market. In addition, the rapid expansion of the flexible display market, the rising demand for OLED-based devices and the technological development of more energy-efficient and higher specification displays are emerging as key drivers of sustained display market growth.

We believe a number of trends are expanding our market opportunity:

The number and complexity of displays in automotive applications continue to increase.

The increasing electrification of vehicles and the shift towards a more autonomous or assisted driving experience are propelling the demand for displays in the automotive market. Automotive displays, as of today, consist primarily of instrument cluster, center infotainment unit and rear seat entertainment. Increasingly, the market has introduced cars with cameras and display combinations instead of traditional mirrors as mirror replacement systems, or eMirrors. In addition to the number of displays in vehicles increasing, auto manufacturers are interested in incorporating previously manually controlled elements (such as temperature controls and stereo functions) into a single, frequently touch-enabled, display solution. Accordingly, the complexity and form factors have expanded to include multi-panel and non-standard shapes and configurations, requiring significant display assembly manufacturing and integration expertise. Displays used in automotive applications are integral to vehicle operation and performance, and must meet a variety of stringent requirements such as broad viewing angles, high brightness, wide temperature ranges and extended product lifetimes and, for certain displays, other operational and safety requirements.

Industrial and other specialized display applications are a demanding and high-growth segment.

The increasing demand to improve user experience, information communication and advertising are driving the proliferation of digital displays in a number of sectors such as transportation, heavy machinery, retail, education, finance, defense, avionics and marine applications. The proliferation of digital technology, decrease in product cost and increase in touch-panel size are also expanding the application of interactive, touch-enabled displays. Examples of industrial/specialized applications include touch monitors used for shopping mall directories, digital signage for advertisement inside and outside of banks, large touch-enabled digital canvases used by professional animation studios, touch displays used in classrooms, cockpit displays used in aircraft, heat-resistant displays used by firefighters and ruggedized displays for industrial and military operators.

Consumer electronics remain the mature foundation of the display market. In the consumer market, tablets and notebooks have become a popular alternative to stationary desktops. Given the portability of these devices and their use in outdoor environments, attributes such as sunlight readability, durability, touch functionality and thin and light design remain essential. Over the last decade, consumer device displays have changed from being bulky and space-consuming to slim and bezel-less, driving the need for increasingly complex customization of display solutions.

The market is also adopting emerging technologies such as flexible display and OLED that could enable more rugged, lighter weight and even thinner display solutions, as well as give rise to novel applications, such as transparent displays. The confluence of the need for portability, increasing design customization and emerging display technologies are driving the demand for enhanced display solutions, a trend we have experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, we believe we will continue to gain market share from conventional display solution providers.

Enhanced Display Solutions

Currently, our enhanced display solutions include DHAs and sub-assemblies such as touch panel assemblies and LCD-touch assemblies. A DHA is a subsystem, consisting of multiple optical and electrical overlays that are designed to be combined with or integrated into another system. The component layers of our DHAs, and their subassemblies, are assembled using our proprietary Max VU optical bonding processes and can incorporate a touch panel if desired. A touch panel subassembly consists of a cover lens and a touch sensor. An LCD subassembly includes an open cell (without backlight) LCD glass matrix and a backlight unit, or BLU, containing optical films, light guide, light source reflectors and other layers.

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The image below demonstrates the structure of a typical DHA with touch functionality.

As an enhanced display solutions provider, we are able to design DHAs by identifying the required components and deliver finished DHAs incorporating components sourced from a combination of in-house and third-party suppliers.

Optical Bonding

Our optical bonding technologies include our proprietary VIA bond plus material, our patented Max VU bonding processes (mainly Max VU II or Max VU III, our dry bonding processes) and related equipment customization.

We believe our inorganic silicone-based optical bonding material offers several advantages over organic bonding materials, such as acrylates. For example, acrylate-based materials shrink by approximately 2-3% or more over time, gradually deteriorating the optical bonding layer. Acrylates also react to UV light and become yellow over their lifetime. As a result, images from displays change color, become dimmer due to decreased transparency and require additional power consumption to compensate for the loss in optical performance. Moreover, displays bonded with acrylate materials usually cannot be repaired because the hardened material cannot be removed from the display components without destroying them. As a result, acrylate-based display assemblies are less environmentally friendly because the component parts often cannot be recycled and reused.

We believe VIA bond plus provides the following key benefits compared to competing bonding materials:

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Pursuant to the terms of our Framework Collaboration Agreement with Wacker, Wacker is our
exclusive supplier of the base materials used in our VIA bond plus. We are the inventor and sole owner of the proprietary formula relating to the combination of silicon base materials used to create VIA bond plus, and the method of application of VIA bond plus to display components. We currently source all of our requirements for the silicon base materials used in our VIA bond plus from a sole supplier. We are actively working to develop alternative sources of materials to be used in our bonding processes, including by developing our own internal supply.

Unlike Max VU, competing technologies typically use a wet process that dispenses a liquid adhesive onto a display, and then applies pressure to the cover lens with mechanical force to squeeze the liquid adhesive from the middle of the substrate to the edges of the display. We believe Max VU provides the following key benefits compared to bonding processes that apply mechanical force:

Metal Mesh Touch Sensors

Through VTS, our majority-owned subsidiary acquired in March 2018 in which Toppan is the minority owner, we develop and manufacture a complete suite of metal mesh touch sensors and electrode base film materials for use in touch panels. A touch-enabled display requires a touch panel including a touch sensor in order to deliver the desired touch functionality. Our touch sensors utilize copper-based metal mesh technology. Metal mesh technology has been successfully introduced into the market as a replacement for legacy ITO technologies and offers several advantages, the most important of which is the higher conductivity of the metal material as compared to ITO. Improved conductivity enhances touch performance and enables features and functions such as use with thick cover lenses and in larger display sizes, as well as pen and glove functionality.

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The image below demonstrates the structure of a typical display that includes a metal mesh touch sensor

Electrode Base Film. We produce our copper electrode base films by applying a copper layer to a substrate, such as Polyethylenterephthalate, or PET, or Cyclo-Olefin-Polymer, or COP, using a sputtering process. Sputtering is a technique in which thin films of atomic material are deposited onto a substrate surface. We produce our electrode base films at our production facility in Satte, Japan on a roll-to-roll, high volume basis, which maximizes cost efficiencies. We intend to leverage our ability to produce both the electrode base film and the related metal mesh touch sensors differentiates us from our competitors. Our ability to produce both component parts necessary to complete a metal mesh touch sensor enables us to control the supply chain, provides flexibility to develop all types of metal mesh sensors and provides our customers with production efficiencies by turning to us as a single source supplier. Additionally, our production capabilities and engineering allow us to use third-party electrode base films in our touch sensor production, which enables us to produce touch sensors using materials other than copper and to mitigate potential capacity shortages in our electrode base films.

Our copper-based mesh sensors are produced using a multi-step photolithography process. First, a photoresist material is applied to the copper electrode base film. Second, as the result of a UV exposure process, the sensor layout is realized on the photoresist level with the assistance of a customized photomask. Finally, a copper etching process is performed to realize the customized metal mesh sensor structure, followed by a cleaning process to remove any remaining photoresist. Our metal mesh touch sensors can be used with different types of cover lenses and in different shapes, which we believe will enable us to continue to develop touch sensors that meet future requirements of our current end-markets as well as for new fields of application.

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We believe our copper-based metal mesh touch sensors provide the following key benefits compared to competing touch sensors using ITO technology:

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We expect that an increasing number of our customers will adopt our in-house metal mesh touch sensor technology as high-precision touch functionality becomes more prevalent.

Cameras

We also custom design camera modules using image sensors we purchase from third-party suppliers to address the fast-growing demand in the automotive and industrial/specialized markets for integrated, camera-enhanced and interactive displays. Whether they are part of an ADAS system in a car, surround view for agriculture equipment or a monitoring system on a ship, we see the demand for our dynamic, advanced camera module technology rapidly increasing. We design camera modules, adjust the camera lens to the viewing angle of the image sensor and align the sensor, utilizing IMI’s patent-pending 6-axis-active alignment technology that we access pursuant to our Service and Support Agreement with IMI. We then integrate this assembly into an ultra-lightweight housing that is resistant to temperature, shock and vibration for automotive and industrial/specialized applications. We are supporting this development through camera module engineering and research and development personnel, including through the services of an experienced camera module design team currently seconded to us by IMI. We believe this is another important step towards realizing our aspiration of becoming an interactive display system provider that offers not only components and subsystems, but also complete systems that fully integrate components in a seamless offering. An example of such an offering is eMirror systems combining camera modules, interactive displays, electronic control units and software interface in a tightly integrated package.

Electronic Control Unit (ECU)

The ECU is a device responsible for controlling the interactive display system. All displays, camera modules and touch screens are connected to the ECU. We develop drivers for our components (display, touch, camera module) to achieve maximum performance. Depending on a customer’s need, we develop functions like hovering, gesture recognition for touch screens, glove compatibility or add commercially available library elements to support other functions such as object recognition.

Interactive Display System

An interactive display system is comprised of several elements: a display, camera module and touch sensors with an ECU. We are able to design and produce displays, camera modules and touch sensors in-house and perform any related optical bonding processes necessary to manufacture the interactive display system. Almost all of our interactive display systems are designed specifically for individual client projects. Components we purchase from third-party suppliers for inclusion in an interactive display system differ based on customer specifications and can include glass, open cell LCD glass matrices, light guides and films, electronic components, housing and sensors or subassemblies where commercially appropriate.

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The image below illustrates the ingredients of an interactive display system.

Cold Form Glass Collaboration with Corning

In 2019 we entered into a strategic partnership with Corning, whereby we are seeking to leverage our core competencies in the area of displays, optical bonding, copper metal mesh touch sensor technology and automotive camera module technology combined with Corning’s core competencies in the area of cold forming glass. As part of this collaboration, we are designing the production equipment used for the cold form process and in 2021 we continued working on several cold form projects with Corning. In January 2020, we initiated mass production of automotive interior curved display systems utilizing these technologies and in 2021 we ramped up production at our new facility in Germany for display assembly based on cold form technology for a leading US electric vehicle manufacturer.

Sales and Marketing

We market and sell our products and solutions primarily through our internal direct sales force, supported by outside sales representatives and distributors. Our direct sales force is organized among our four sales offices in Germany, China, Taiwan and the United States. We currently have two sales agents or distributors in Asia, with territories covering Japan and Korea, and one sales agent in the United States. In addition, we employ a direct sales manager who is primarily focused on automotive customers, globally. Our sales personnel receive substantial technical assistance and support from our internal technical marketing and engineering teams. Sales frequently result from multi-level sales efforts that involve senior management, engineers, and our sales personnel interacting with our customers’ decision-makers throughout the product design, development and order process. Our customers often provide our sales force with insight into how our products will be integrated into our customers’ solutions and frequently look to us as a design partner. This sales process requires us to develop strong customer relationships and to work collaboratively with our customers to fulfill their needs. The period of time from our initial contact with a prospective or current customer to the receipt of an actual purchase order (including time relating to the qualification process) depends on the end-markets and is frequently a year or even more, with such period being longer for more complex solutions such as in the automotive and industrial/specialized applications. Prospective customers often perform extensive testing before our products and solutions are incorporated into their own product offerings. This phase of our sales cycle can take several months and purchase arrangements may not be entered into until after this phase is completed.

Our customers’ product life cycles typically last multiple years, with consumer electronics being approximately 1-1.5 years, automotive being approximately 3-7 years and industrial/specialized applications being approximately 3-10+ years. With respect to metal mesh touch sensors and film produced by VTS, both we and Toppan have dedicated sales teams who provide sales services. Our dedicated sales force, as well as Toppan’s, is contracted under a bilateral distribution agreement, providing distributor services to VTS. See “Item 4. Information on the Company – B. Business

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Overview – Business—Strategic Alliance Agreements" for a description of the distribution agreement and other material agreements with Toppan. As of December 31, 2021, we employed 42 sales and marketing professionals, with such professionals based in each of our locations. For the year ended December 31, 2020, our selling expenses totaled €3.4 million and represented 2.2% of revenue and for the 12 months ended December 31, 2021 our selling expenses totaled €6.4 million and represented 3.5% of revenue.

Strategic Alliance Agreements

Agreements with Toppan Printing Co., Ltd.

We have entered into a series of agreements in connection with our acquisition of a majority interest in VTS and the establishment of the governance and other operational and commercial rights and obligations of VIA, VTS and Toppan relating to VTS. These agreements and the material terms thereof are summarized below.

On November 30, 2017, we entered a Framework Agreement with Toppan to establish VTS in Japan for the purpose of developing, manufacturing and marketing (i) copper touch sensors used in touch panel modules and (ii) copper PET film used in touch panel sensors. Pursuant to the Framework Agreement, Toppan incorporated VTS-Touchsensor Co., Ltd. (f/k/a Toppan Touch Panel Products Co., Ltd.) as its wholly-owned subsidiary and transferred certain assets forming the business operations of VTS through a corporate spin-off proceeding (kaisha bunkatsu) under the Companies Act of Japan.

On March 23, 2018, we entered into a Share Purchase Agreement with Toppan, pursuant to which we obtained 65% of the outstanding shares of common stock of VTS-Touchsensor Co., Ltd. from Toppan for upfront cash consideration of 211,231,000 Japanese Yen (excluding tax). The purchase price for our shares was later reduced to 168,146,444 Japanese Yen (excluding tax) in accordance with the final determination of an inventory-based purchase price adjustment provided for in the Share Purchase Agreement.

Concurrently with our acquisition of our shares in VTS, we entered into a Shareholders Agreement with Toppan that governs the rights and obligations of the parties as shareholders of VTS. The material terms of the Shareholders Agreement are as follows:

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In accordance with the Framework Agreement, VTS also entered into certain commercial agreements with Toppan (or its affiliate, as applicable), to obtain the necessary assets, technologies, human resources and facilities to carry on VTS’s business operations.

The material terms of these commercial agreements are as follows:

VTS may request the extension of the secondment period or convert a secondee to a direct employee of VTS by providing six months’ prior notice before the expiration of the applicable secondment period, and VTS and Toppan agree to engage in good faith negotiation to accommodate VTS’s request, subject to the consent of the seconded employee. VTS may also request that secondees be replaced or their positions adjusted by delivering written notice to Toppan and engaging in mutual negotiation with Toppan following such request. Under the secondment agreements Toppan is responsible for the administration of the secondees’ employment terms, conditions and benefits and Toppan’s service policies, including holiday and vacation policies, apply. The cost of the secondees’ salaries, pensions, employee-related government taxes and benefits are allocated to VTS. The secondment agreements may be terminated upon an insolvency event of either party, either party’s uncured material breach of the agreement, if we cease to control a majority interest in VTS or if Toppan no longer holds any interest in VTS.

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Business Assistance Agreement:  Under this agreement, effective March 26, 2018, Toppan provides VTS with certain operational support services, such as sales and production control (including pricing and quotation proposal), manufacturing design operation, procurement, accounting, environmental regulatory compliance, general administration of seconded employees, product shipping and quality control. Additionally, Toppan will allocate an appropriate number of staff with the qualifications to perform these services. The cost of the personnel performing the operational support services is allocated to VTS at fixed monthly rates based on the number of individuals and time dedicated to performing such services. VTS and Toppan also collaborate to use a shared administration system. The business assistance agreement has a three-year term. The first amendment was signed on April 1, 2019 and because the cost of the support service changed in accordance with the updated consigned work list, the second amendment was signed on

April 1, 2020. The second amendment also extended service term to March 31, 2022. The new amendment signed on April 26, 2022 further extended the term to March 31, 2023.

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It is terminable by VTS on 30 days’ prior written notice, upon an insolvency event of either party, either party’s uncured material breach of the agreement, if we cease to control a majority interest in VTS or if Toppan no longer holds any interest in VTS.

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Framework Collaboration Agreement with Wacker Chemie AG

We are party to a Framework Cooperation Agreement with Wacker, dated April 8, 2019, that replaced an earlier agreement between Wacker and us originally signed in 2013. Pursuant to the agreement, Wacker is the sole supplier to us of the base silicone material we use to prepare our VIA bond plus adhesive, a critical element in our optical bonding process. The silicone material has been improved and refined in accordance with our specifications over a number of years under the prior agreement.

With respect to the continued supply of silicone materials, the new Framework Cooperation Agreement provides as follows: (i) Wacker is required to exclusively provide us with the base silicone material used in our VIA bond plus adhesive per the specifications set forth in such agreement so long as we satisfy a minimum delivery amount per calendar year, (ii) we are required to purchase all of our requirements of our silicone materials from Wacker, if the silicone material is suitable for the project and approved by our customer and except to the extent that Wacker is unable to meet our requirements (which Wacker is required to confirm in writing within one week of our request for material) in which event we are permitted to obtain a suitable different material, (iii) the price of such material shall be mutually negotiated each year during the fourth quarter, with the contract being terminable if the parties are not able to agree on terms and (iv) Wacker’s liability is limited as it solely warrants that the silicone material will meet the specifications provided in the agreement. The Framework Cooperation Agreement has an initial term ending December 31, 2022 and thereafter automatically renews for successive one year terms unless it is earlier terminated on six months’ advance notice. While the contract may be renewed for additional periods, the exclusive relationship with Wacker will terminate no later December 31, 2022.

The Framework Cooperation Agreement also establishes Wacker and us as development partners for materials in the area of optical bonding, providing that Wacker will be identified to customers as the bearer of expertise in the manufacturing of products required for optical bonding and we will be identified to customers as the bearer of expertise with respect to the processing, assembly, development and optimization of applications and the development of assembly equipment. The agreement also provides that it is not intended to affect any pre-existing intellectual property rights of the parties or to effect any cross-licensing of intellectual property.

Collaboration with Corning

We also have entered into five commercial agreements with Corning Auto Glass Solutions, LLC or one of its affiliates (Corning) to collaborate on the development and manufacture of glass-on frame cold formed, or three dimensional formed surface, products for automotive interiors employing our optical bonding technology and Corning’s cold forming technology which enables three-dimensional (3D) shaped cover glass designs, including automotive dashboard and instrument clusters made out of a single piece of formed glass. Automotive interiors includes cockpit and interior solutions of passenger vehicles, including automobiles, trucks, aircraft, seacraft and trains. The agreements include provisions relating to development, supply, manufacturing, cost-sharing and exclusivity, and delineate the respective intellectual property rights of the parties. The first three agreements have an initial term of ten (10) years from the effective date of March 6, 2019 ,unless earlier terminated pursuant to its terms, and will thereafter automatically renew for one (1) or more additional three-year periods upon expiration of the initial term, as applicable, subject to certain notice requirements. The fourth agreement has an initial term of 10 years with an effective date of January 26, 2021. The fifth agreement has an initial term of seven years with an effective date of November 15, 2021. We have no financial commitments under the agreements until work orders are entered into, other than the industrialization support charges of the fifth agreement. Half will be charged in each sold part the other portion shall be reimbursed each quarter of 2022. The fourth agreement adds a new project to the first three agreements.

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Agreements with IMI

Service and Support Agreement

Our subsidiary VIA optronics GmbH entered into a Service and Support Agreement effective January 7, 2019, with IMI, an affiliate of our shareholder, pursuant to which IMI agreed to provide development support services to VIA optronics GmbH by providing 14 dedicated employees for contract development support services. Additional dedicated employees can be added by mutual agreement of the parties. VIA optronics GmbH pays a fixed monthly fee for each dedicated employee which covers all costs for five (5) workdays a week. In addition, VIA optronics GmbH bears sole responsibility for any potential taxes, assessments, and other similar payments which accrue under this agreement. Each party disclaims any ownership rights to other party’s background intellectual property and provides that any intellectual property that is developed by the parties in the course of performing the development support services under the agreement is solely owned by VIA optronics GmbH. The Service and Support Agreement has an unlimited term unless terminated by either party on at least 30 days’ written notice. The agreement ended on December 31, 2021.

Framework Development Agreement

VIA optronics GmbH also entered into a Framework Development Agreement with IMI that was effective November 1, 2018. Pursuant to this agreement, Via optronics GmbH agreed to provide IMI, development and research services for camera module projects. The scope of any relevant services to be provided by VIA optronics GmbH is to be set forth in separate statements of work which are negotiated in good faith by the parties, which statements of work will contain any terms and conditions with regard to contract periods and payment conditions. IMI pays a fixed hourly rate for each employee of VIA optronics GmbH performing services under this agreement. In addition, IMI, bears sole responsibility for any potential taxes, assessments, and other similar payments which will accrue under this agreement. The agreement disclaims any ownership rights to other party’s background intellectual property and provides that any intellectual property that is developed by the parties in the course of performing any statement of work is solely owned by VIA optronics GmbH. The Framework Development Agreement has an unlimited term unless terminated by either party on at least 30 days’ written notice. The agreement ended on December 31, 2021.

Incorporation VIA optronics (Philippines), Inc.

In September 2021 we incorporated a new entity in the Philippines, VIA optronics (Philippines), Inc. (“VIA Philippines”), to provide customized and platform camera solutions, from design and development to process testing and quality control. VIA Philippines was incorporated to facilitate the integration of a camera design and development team that was previously a part of Integrated Micro-Electronics, Inc. (“IMI”), a Philippines-based company and VIA shareholder. Through a Service and Support Agreement (the “Agreement”), IMI has provided development support services through this team to the Company’s subsidiary, VIA optronics GmbH since January 2019. The Agreement was terminated on December 31, 2021 and the camera design and development team formally become a part of the Company in January 2022, with approximately 20 employees joining VIA.

Strategic Partnership with SigmaSense

In June 2021, we formed a strategic partnership with SigmaSense, a global leader in touch sensing performance. As part of the strategic partnership, VIA has made a financial investment into SigmaSense and expanded their collaboration to develop new touch solutions for automotive applications, industrial displays and consumer electronics. In June 2021, VIA also purchased a convertible promissory note for $900,000 (the “Note”).

The Note had an interest rate of 6.0% per annum and was converted into Series B-1 shares of SigmaSense in 2021.

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Intellectual Property Rights

Our success and ability to compete depend in part on our ability to maintain the proprietary aspects of our technologies and products. We rely on a combination of patents, trademarks, trade secrets, licensing and collaboration agreements, confidentiality agreements, and other statutory and contractual provisions to protect our intellectual property, but these measures may provide only limited protection.

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Patents

In combination with VTS, as of December 31, 2021, we held 49 active patent families (i.e., groups of patents/patent applications for an invention filed in different countries that are based on the same priority (the first application)), including 137 granted patents covering certain display systems and customized equipment relating to our optical bonding technology and conductive film, electrodes and touch panels and display devices relating to our metal mesh touch sensor technology, and had an additional 20 pending patent applications worldwide.

These patent assets are complemented by our marketing, business development, applications, production and operations know-how and our ongoing research and development efforts.

Trade Secrets

As is true in our industry generally, the development of our products, processes and materials has involved a considerable amount of experience, manufacturing, operating and processing know-how and research and development techniques. We protect our proprietary processes and technologies with a blend of patent protection and trade secret protection. As part of our overall intellectual property strategy, we protect our non-patented proprietary knowledge as trade secrets through confidentiality controls such as nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements.

Licenses and Collaboration Agreements

We are a party to various licenses, collaborations and other arrangements that allow us to practice and improve our technology under a range of patents, patent applications and other intellectual property. These include the licensing and collaboration agreements with Toppan that are described in more detail under the heading “Item 4. Information on the Company – B. Business Overview – Strategic Alliance Agreements”.

Trademarks

We have trademark protection for the word and figurative trademarks “Max VU”, in each of the United States, Germany, China and the European Union. We have received trademark protection for “VIA optronics” in Germany.

Competition

Our optical bonded display solutions and metal mesh touch sensors are sold into end-markets for automotive, consumer electronics and industrial/specialized applications. These end-markets are characterized by rapidly changing technology and intense competition. Our principal competitors in automotive application markets are display makers with their own optical bonding capabilities such as AU Optronics, INX, Tianma, JDI and SHARP as well as Tier-1 suppliers, such as Continental and Alpine. Our principal competitors in the sale of optical bonded display solutions for consumer electronics applications are TPK, Henghao, Shenzen Laibao Hi-Tech, GIS, Mutto and O-film. Our main competitors in the sale of optical bonded display solutions for industrial/specialized applications are primarily smaller regional companies such as Data Modul, Faytech and Data Image. In certain strategic cases, in order to expand our optical bonding capacity in different markets, we partner with competitors by granting them a time limited license containing know-how about our process and delivery of our material for their manufacture of products for end users. For example, Continental is a licensee of our technology in addition to being a competitor and may from time to time also purchase components from us. Our principal competitor within metal mesh touch sensor technology is Fujifilm, which is also capable of producing F2 structures but uses silver (rather than copper) based metal mesh. We also compete with producers of existing ITO sensors and a limited set of smaller competitors who produce silver and copper-based metal mesh touch sensors but who focus more on the medium to larger-sized FF structure.

Government Regulation

We are subject to environmental, health and safety regulations in Germany, as well as in the countries where our products are used or sold or produced.

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Germany

Legal Requirements for Manufacturing Sites, Facilities and Operations

Emissions Control Law

Our production processes generate emissions, in particular noise. As a result, we are subject to the rules and regulations of the Federal Emissions Control Act (Bundesimmissionsschutzgesetz, or BImSchG). The Federal Emissions Control Act contains provisions aiming at the prevention of harmful effects on the environment caused by air pollution, noise, vibration and similar environmental emissions. Companies causing such environmental emissions in Germany are subject to the supervision of the Federal Environment Agency and require a permit to perform their activities causing such emissions. We currently do not require any permits to be granted under the Federal Emissions Control Act as the emissions (such as noise) caused by our operations do not exceed certain threshold levels as determined by the Federal Emission Control Act.

As our products are mainly manufactured by machines, we are also required to comply with the 32nd Regulation on the Implementation of the Federal Emissions Control Act, or Ordinance on Equipment and Machine Noise Protection (Geräte- und Maschinenlärmschutzverordnung—32. BImSchV).

We are further subject to the 1st Regulation on the Implementation of the Federal Emission Control Act, or Ordinance on Small and Medium-sized Firing Installations (Verordnung über kleine und mittlere Feuerungsanlagen—1. BImschV) as we use ovens for temperature testing of our products as part of our quality management. We are in compliance in all material aspects with these emission control laws.

Production, Possession and Handling of Waste and Dangerous Goods

Our business activities result in the generation, possession and handling of waste. We are subject to the German Act on Recycling (Kreislaufwirtschaftsgesetz, or KrWG) and the corresponding ordinances. In accordance therewith, the generation, possession and handling of waste is subject to several obligations, depending, among other things, on the characteristics of the waste concerned. As producer (Erzeuger) and possessor (Besitzer) of waste, we are generally responsible for the proper handling of such waste, and we are in compliance in all material aspects with the relevant rules and regulations.

Section 50 of the KrWG requires producers, possessors, collectors and transporters of waste and disposal firms to verify to the competent authority the proper disposal of hazardous waste (gefährliche Abfälle). Whether a certain substance qualifies as hazardous waste is determined according to the German Ordinance on the European Waste List (Verordnung über das Europäische Abfallverzeichnis). Save for ethanol-containing cleanser in low volumes we do not use or produce any hazardous waste in our production process.

We additionally comply in all material aspects with the requirements of the Battery Law (Batteriegesetz, or BattG) by disposing the batteries we use in an environmental-friendly way. We also comply with the provisions of the Packaging Law (Verpackungsgesetz, or VerpackG) which entered into force on 1 January 2019, replacing the Packaging Ordinance (Verpackungsverordnung). The Packaging Law applies to all distributors who put packaging into commercial circulation on the German market for the first time (referred to as “manufacturers”)—i.e., both for national producers and for importers. The Packaging Law requires manufacturers to register and participate in a disposal and recycling system in relation to its product packaging.

Furthermore, we comply in all material aspects with the Regulation (EC) No. 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of December 18, 2006 concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH). The European Union adopted the REACH Regulation to improve the protection of human health and the environment from the risks that can be posed by hazardous chemicals. In general, we do not use any hazardous chemicals other than ethanol-containing cleanser in our production process which, given the low volumes used by us, cannot be expected to have a negative impact on the environment.

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Product Safety

Directive 2001/95/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of December 3, 2001 on general product safety, which has been implemented in Germany by the German Product Safety Act (Produktsicherheitsgesetz, or ProdSG) as well as various governmental regulations (Rechtsverordnungen) on the safety of specific products and product groups, impose various obligations on manufactures. The German Product Safety Act applies whenever products are made available on the market, exhibited or first used in the context of a commercial activity, unless other legal provisions provide for corresponding or more far-reaching provisions on user protection.

Under the German Product Safety Act, a product may be made available on the market only if it complies with specific regulations applicable to such product, or, in the absence of such specific regulations, if its intended or foreseeable use does not put the health and safety of persons at risk. In addition to compliance with this general safety requirement, if products are made available to consumers, manufacturers must provide consumers with the necessary information allowing them to assess the risks inherent in such product where such risks are not obvious without adequate warnings and to take precautions against those risks. If manufacturers or distributors of consumer products become aware that a product is dangerous, they must notify the competent authorities and, where required, cooperate with them. Under certain circumstances, a product may have to be recalled. Our company has never been subject to a claim or order to recall any of its products under the German Product Safety Act.

Potential Fault-Based Liability and Strict Liability related to Products

In accordance with general principles of German civil law, we may be subject to fault-based liability for damages (Schadensersatz) caused by a breach of contract or unlawful infringement of legally protected rights of others by our own acts but also by any actions of individuals that work or undertake tasks for us or on our behalf in accordance with Sections 278 and 831 of the German Civil Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch or BGB).

Under the German Product Liability Act (Produkthaftungsgesetz, or ProdHaftG) we may be strictly liable (i.e. liable regardless of our fault), as a ‘‘producer’’ for damages caused by a defective product. ‘‘Producer’’ means any participant in the production process, or importer, of a defective product, any person putting a name, trademark or other distinguishing feature on the product, and any person supplying a product whose actual producer cannot be identified. ‘‘Defectiveness’’ means the lack of compliance with safety requirements which the general public is entitled to expect when taking into account, among other things, the presentation of the product and the uses to which it can reasonably be put. We are not involved in any pending or threatened product liability cases or claims under the German Product Liability Act or other applicable regulations regarding product liability.

Liability for Environmental Damages

In the event of damage to persons or property caused by our facilities, we may additionally be strictly liable under the German Act on Liability for Environmental Damage (Umwelthaftungsgesetz, or UmwHG) or under the German Environmental Damage Act (Umweltschadensgesetz, or UmwSG), and the members of our management board, our supervisory board and our employees may even incur criminal liability under the German Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch, or StGB). We are not involved in any pending or threatened cases or claims under the German Act on Liability for Environmental Damage or the German Environmental Damage Act.

Occupational Health and Safety Requirement.

Occupational health and safety laws are applicable where a work environment may pose threats to employees. German law on occupational safety is heavily influenced by the requirements of the laws of the European Union. The key rules on occupational safety in Germany are contained in the German Act on Occupational Safety (Arbeitsschutzgesetz, or ArbSchG), which requires employers to provide for their employees’ safety. This general obligation has been put into effect through several ordinances (Rechtsverordnungen) under the German Act on Occupational Safety, which are, in turn, more fully specified in technical guidelines. Among the relevant ordinances applicable to us is the Workplaces Ordinance (Arbeitsstättenverordnung), which contains various regulations on workplace conditions relating to, for example, ventilation, temperature and illumination. We are in compliance in all material aspects with the occupational and safety laws that are applicable to us.

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In addition, we are monitored by the employers’ liability insurance association (Berufsgenossenschaft). All companies in Germany are required to be member of the Berufsgenossenschaft, which is monitoring the companies regarding compliance with occupational health and safety requirements.

Data Protection and Data Privacy

Data protection in general

The collection, processing and other use of personal data is extensively regulated by European and national legislation. At the EU level, Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of April 27, 2016, also known as the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, entered into force on May 25, 2018. In Germany, the General Data Protection Regulation is supplemented and modified by the German Federal Data Protection Act (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz, or BDSG), which was recently amended with effect from May 25, 2018, as well as data protection statutes on state level. In general, the GDPR regulates when and how personal data may be collected, for what purposes it may be processed, for how long such data may be stored and to whom and how it may be transferred. The GDPR contains strict requirements for obtaining the consent of data subjects (i.e., the persons to whom personal data relates) regarding the use and processing of their personal data. Such consent may be withdrawn at any time without cause, disallowing the continued use of the data concerned. In addition, transfer of personal data to recipients outside the EEA is subject to specific requirements. In connection with our business operations, we store personal data of customers in our CRM and ERP systems as part of our sales processes. The GDPR also requires businesses to take organizational measures such as the appointment of a data protection officer (Datenschutzbeauftragter), who, inter alia, monitors compliance with the requirements of the GDPR. We have retained an external data protection officer which monitors compliance with the GDPR. In addition, it may require a so-called privacy impact assessment in cases where an envisaged data processing operation is likely to result in high risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals concerned. In addition to the GDPR and the German Data Protection Act, various sector-specific statues set forth specific rules which apply to certain industries or businesses and, within their respective scope, override the general provisions of the German Data Protection Act.

Individual rights of data subjects

Under the GDPR data subjects, inter alia, have the right to require information about what data has been recorded with respect to them, how their data is being processed, the right to data portability as well as the right to restrict certain processing of their data. Furthermore, the GDPR establishes a “right to be forgotten”. As a result, a data subject may require that data relating to such data subject be deleted where, for example, the data subject has withdrawn his or her consent to use or storage of such data.

Consequences of non-compliance

Under the GDPR, any violation of applicable provisions may result in severe fines. Depending on the infringement, fines up to the higher of 4% of the annual worldwide turnover of the “undertaking”(which, in connection with a company that belongs to a corporate group, may relate to the entire group) for the last fiscal year or A20.0 million may be imposed. In addition, the GDPR grants individual data subjects the right to claim damages for violation of their rights under the GDPR.

China

Production, Possession and Handling of Waste and Dangerous Goods

Our business activities in China result in the generation and discharging of waste, including hazardous waste. Pursuant to the PRC Environmental Protection Law promulgated on December 26, 1989, amended on April 24, 2014, and effective as of January 1, 2015, the Measures for Pollutant Discharge Permitting Administration (for Trial Implementation) promulgated on January 10, 2018 and effective as of the same date, as well as Regulations on the Administration of Pollutant Discharge Permits promulgated on January 24, 2021 and effective as of March 1, 2021, a pollutant discharging entity shall hold a pollutant discharge permit as legally required, and the handling of hazardous waste is subject to special obligations such as registering with local authorities and helping authorities track the transfer of the hazardous waste to a qualified hazardous waste disposal entity. Our Chinese subsidiary has obtained the required permits.

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Legal Requirements Related to Products

Product Safety

Pursuant to the Product Quality Law of PRC promulgated on February 22, 1993 and amended on July 8, 2000, August 27, 2009 and December 29, 2018, companies are prohibited from producing or selling products that do not meet applicable standards and requirements for safeguarding human health and ensuring human and property safety. Products must be free from unreasonable dangers threatening human and property safety. Where a defective product causes physical injury to a person or property damage, the aggrieved party may make a claim for compensation from the producer or the seller of the product. Producers and sellers of non-compliant products may be ordered to cease the production or sale of the products and could be subject to confiscation of the products and/or fines. Earnings from sales in contravention of such standards or requirements may also be confiscated, and in severe cases, an offender’s business license may be revoked.

Work Safety

Under relevant work safety laws and regulations, including the Work Safety Law of the PRC which was promulgated on June 29, 2002, amended on August 27, 2009, August 31, 2014, and June 10, 2021 and effective as of September 1, 2021, production and operating business entities must establish objectives and measures for work safety and improve the working environment and conditions for workers in a planned and systematic way. A work safety protection scheme must also be set up to implement a work safety responsibility system. In addition, production and operating business entities must arrange for work safety training and provide employees with protective equipment that meets the national standards or industrial standards. An entity, its relevant persons-in-charge and/or work safety management personnel, who have failed to perform such safety measures will be required to rectify within a time limit or face administrative penalties. If the failure is not rectified within the prescribed time limit, the entity may be ordered to suspend business until such time as the failure is rectified, and serious violations may result in criminal liabilities. We are in compliance with the Work Safety Law.

Environmental Protection

Pursuant to the Environmental Protection Law of the PRC promulgated on December 26, 1989, amended on April 24, 2014 and effective on January 1, 2015, any entity which discharges or will discharge pollutants during the course of its operations or other activities must implement effective environmental protection safeguards and procedures to control and properly treat waste gas, waste water, waste residue, dust, noise vibrations, electromagnetic radiation and other hazards produced during such activities. Environmental protection authorities impose various administrative penalties on persons or enterprises in violation of the Environmental Protection Law. Such penalties include warnings, fines, orders to rectify within the prescribed period, orders to cease construction, orders to restrict or suspend production, orders to make recovery, orders to disclose relevant information or make an announcement, imposition of administrative action against relevant responsible persons, and orders to shut down enterprises. Any person or entity that pollutes the environment resulting in damage could also be held liable under the Tort Law of the PRC. In addition, environmental organizations may also bring lawsuits against any entity that discharges pollutants detrimental to the public welfare.

Potential Liability for Products and Environmental Losses

Our business activities in China are exposed to product liability and liability for environmental damage. Our Chinese subsidiary is engaged in the production and sales of the display screen and the TFT-LCD display panel and relevant products and processes. As a producer, our Chinese subsidiary may be held strictly liable (i.e., liable regardless of our fault) for damages caused by a defective product. Pursuant to the PRC Product Quality Law, producers may be protected from liability only if they can prove the case falls into one of the following three circumstances: (i) the products have not been put into circulation; (ii) the defects were non-existent when the products were put into circulation; or (iii) the defects could not be found at the time of circulation due to scientific and technological reasons. Punitive compensation could be available if the producer or seller knowingly produces or sells a defective product that causes death or serious damages to the health of others. As for the environmental liabilities, according to the PRC Civil Code, polluters are strictly liable for any damages caused to the environment. Any entity which discharges pollutants shall assume the burden to prove that it should not be liable or its liability could be mitigated under certain circumstances as provided for by law or to prove that there is no causation between its conduct and the harm. Even if the

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entity complies with all the national or local pollutant discharge standards, it may still be held liable in accordance with a judicial interpretation issued by Supreme People’s Court on the liability for environmental torts.

Japan

Legal Requirements for Manufacturing Sites, Facilities and Operations

Production, Possession and Handling of Waste and Dangerous Goods or Those Otherwise Harmful to the Environment Under the Waste Management and Public Cleansing Law of Japan (Act No. 137 of December 25, 1970; the “Waste Management Law”), a business operator must, among other things, appropriately dispose of its industrial waste pursuant to the cabinet ordinance promulgated under the Waste Management Law regarding the disposal and transportation of industrial wastes, or otherwise entrust transportation and disposal of industrial waste to a waste management firm with a permit issued by the applicable prefectural governor under the Waste Management Law. Under the Act on Rational Use and Proper Management of Fluorocarbons (Act No. 64 of June 22, 2001), users of specified products such as commercial refrigerators or air conditioners containing fluorocarbon refrigerants, must, among other things, conduct examinations, and are required to report fluorocarbon leakage over certain amounts to the competent minister. Further, maintenance operators of such specified products (retained by such users) must engage with professional collections firms registered with prefectural government, which handles collection of fluorocarbons and filings to the relevant governor.

Emission/Effluent/Noise Control

Under the Water Pollution Prevention Act of Japan (Act No. 138 of December 25, 1970), a plant operator or other business entity which discharges water from a “Specified Facility” must, among other things, register such Specified Facility in advance with the applicable prefectural governor. A “Specified Facility” is a facility discharging water that either (i) contains harmful substances, such as cadmium, as specified by the cabinet ordinance, or (ii) has a level of pollution likely to negatively affect living conditions as measured by the cabinet ordinance, including based on chemical oxygen demand. The operator of such Specified Facility must, among other requirements, comply with the effluent standards set forth by the ministerial ordinance of the Ministry of Environment, and periodically measure the pollution level of discharged water. Under the Act on Confirmation, etc. of Release Amounts of Specific Chemical Substances in the Environment and Promotion of Improvements to the Management Thereof (Act No. 86 of July 13, 1999; the “PRTR Act”), a business operator that handles designated chemical substances which pose a risk to human health or wildlife habitats (or materials easily transformed into such substances), must, among other things, measure and confirm the released amount and the transferred amount, and notify annually the competent minister such as the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry (via prefectural governor) of such released amount and the transferred amount, pursuant to the applicable regulations set by such competent minister. Under the Air Pollution Control Act (Act No. 97 of June 10, 1968), a business operator must, among other things, take necessary measures to determine the status of the emission and dispersal into the atmosphere of ‘‘hazardous air pollutants’’ associated with their business activities, and to control such emission and dispersal. Copper and its compound are designated as materials which could be classified as hazardous air pollutants. Under the Noise Regulation Act (Act No. 98 of June 10, 1968), a business operator with certain noise-generating facilities located in a designated area must, among other things, comply with the maximum noise generation standards under the Act, which are respectively specified based on the time periods (mid-day, morning/evening and night) and the nature of areas (residential, industrial, etc.).

Legal Requirements Related to Products

Product Safety

Under the Industry Safety and Health Act (Act No. 57 of June 8, 1972; the “ISHA”), a business entity which delivers products containing certain material classified as harmful under the ISHA is required, among other things, to notify certain matters set forth by the ministerial ordinance of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare upon delivery of such products, in writing or by other method as prescribed by such ordinance. Further, under the Fire Services Act (Act No. 186 of July 24, 1948), a party who stores or handles designated combustibles such as synthetic resins, must notify the applicable regional fire station director in advance.

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Occupational Health and Safety Requirements

Under the relevant work safety laws and regulations, including the ISHA, an employer such as our Japanese subsidiary must comply with the standards for preventing industrial accidents set forth in the ISHA, and ensure the safety and health of workers in workplaces by creating a comfortable work environment and improving working conditions. Further, an employer must, depending on the size and the nature of its plants as set forth by the ministerial regulations of the ISHA, appoint a general safety and health manager in charge of each workplace, to establish measures to, among other things, prevent physical risks or health hazards to workers, provide education on occupational health and safety, and prevent workplace accidents. Our manufacturing sites in Japan are in compliance with the relevant work safety laws and regulations in all material respects, including the ISHA.

Environmental Protection

The Basic Environment Law (Act No. 91 of November 19, 1993; the “Basic Environment Act”) sets forth the basic policy with respect to the environmental obligations of a business operator, and generally requires such business operator: (i) to take appropriate measures to prevent pollution and preserve the environment, (ii) to take appropriate measures for disposal of products which become waste, (iii) to make efforts to reduce the environmental burden in the use or disposal of products, including utilizing raw materials that minimize such environmental impact, and (iv) to cooperate with national and local governments with respect to environment preservation policy. The Basic Environment Act is intended to promote measures to mitigate global warming, and to further promote measures to reduce carbon emissions under the Act on Rationalizing Energy Use (Act No. 49 of June 22, 1979; the “Energy Use Act”), as amended. Also refer to Legal Requirements for Manufacturing Sites, Facilities and Operations—Production, Possession and Handling of Waste and Dangerous Goods, and—Legal Requirements for Manufacturing Sites, Facilities and Operations Emission/Effluent Control.

Potential Liability for Products and Environmental Losses

Manufacturing business operations in Japan are potentially exposed to product liability and liability for environmental damages, including the liabilities enumerated below. A manufacturer of products may be strictly liable for damages caused by a defective product. Pursuant to the Product Liability Act of Japan (Act No. 85 of July 1, 1994; the “PL Act”), manufacturers are liable for damages arising from the deprivation of life, health or property of others that is caused by the defect in the delivered product unless, (i) such defect could not have been discovered given the state of scientific or technical knowledge at the time when the manufacturer delivered the product or (ii) in case where the product is used as a component or raw material in another product, if the defect occurred primarily because of the compliance with the instructions concerning the design given by the manufacturer of such other product, and that the manufacturer is not negligent with respect to the occurrence of such defect. The scope of damage (indemnification) will be determined pursuant to general tort and contract principles under the Civil Code of Japan (Act No. 89 of April 27, 1896). With respect to environmental liabilities, under the Water Pollution Prevention Act, polluters are strictly liable for any damages caused on human life or health, resulting from the discharge of polluted water or waste water containing harmful substances, in connection with their business operations. If an accident occurs at a Specified Facility that results in the discharge of water containing harmful substances likely to harm human health or living conditions, the operator of such Specified Facility must immediately take measures to prevent subsequent discharge or permeation of water containing harmful substances and must notify the prefecture governor of such measures taken.

Worldwide

Our operations and the activities of our employees, contractors and agents around the world are subject to the laws and regulations of numerous countries, including the United States and Taiwan. These laws and regulations include data privacy requirements, labor relations laws, tax laws, anti-competition regulations, prohibitions on payments to governmental officials, import and trade restrictions and export requirements. Violations of these laws and regulations could result in fines, criminal sanctions against our officers, our employees, or us and may result in prohibitions on the conduct of our business. Any such violations could also result in prohibitions on our ability to offer our products and services in one or more countries and could materially damage our reputation, our ability to attract and retain employees, our business and our operating results. Our operations (particularly in those countries with developing economies) are also subject to risks of violations of laws prohibiting improper payments and bribery, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, the U.K. Bribery Act of 2010 and similar regulations in other jurisdictions. Although we intend to implement policies and procedures designed to ensure compliance with these laws, our employees, contractors and agents may take actions in violation of such policies. Any such violations, even if prohibited by our policies, could subject us to civil or criminal penalties or otherwise have an adverse effect on our business and reputation.

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The production sites in Nuremberg and Suzhou employ manual, semi-automated and fully automated production lines and can handle different sizes of displays up to 100 inches in diagonal size. The production is based on process know-how, which is partially patented, as well as our proprietary VIA bond plus materials, which are exclusively produced for us on a contract basis. Most of the machinery used in our production process is designed and developed by us and manufactured by third party suppliers. Component materials such as display, housing, electronic parts or BLUs are purchased directly by us from third-party suppliers or are purchased from or provided by our customers. We seek to limit loss due to unused or obsolete inventory and components by generally purchasing raw materials only as required by customers’ purchase orders. We ship directly to our customers globally or via custom-free hubs. We maintain internal supply chain and project management organizations that oversee our production processes and our component inventory requirements to facilitate cost and timing efficiencies in our manufacturing processes.

As of December 31, 2021 we had 35 employees dedicated to these functions. Both of our Japanese production sites are located inside factories of Toppan and are operated pursuant to lease and business assistance agreements. The production process is mainly operated by Toppan employees who are dedicated to VTS production on a secondment basis pursuant to secondment agreements. The primary raw materials used in production at these facilities are purchased by VTS with support from Toppan’s purchasing team, leveraging pre-negotiated Toppan procurement conditions. See “Item 4. Information on the Company – B. Business Overview – Strategic Alliance Agreements” for a description of the lease and secondment agreements and other material agreements with Toppan. Because our products are often designed in close collaboration with our customers, our manufacturing and production teams, along with our sales and research and development personnel, are often actively involved in multiple stages of our customers’ product design, development and production processes. As our business continues to grow, we intend to expand our operations within these groups over the next several years, including cold forming production and improvement in automation in our facilities in Germany and Japan. To support these upgrades and enhancements, we intend to increase our engineering, marketing and services staff in multiple geographies in order to support new development, marketing and service activities to meet the needs of both new and existing customers. We believe that the achievement of these expansion efforts may require substantial capital expenditures.

In 2021 we started to set up  a new production facility by installing a new automated production line in a new building near our headquarters in Nuremberg.  This production facility is used to build display assemblies for automotive end customers based on the cold form technology.  This new line occupies an area of about 1500m². Installation was completed in July 2021 and we started to ramp up production in August 2021.

The image below illustrates the location of our manufacturing, R&D and engineering and sales and support facilities.

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*    The ISO 9000 family of standards relates to quality management systems and is designed to help organizations ensure that they meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders.

Capital Expenditures

Our capital expenditures amounted to €8.8 million and €3.8 million, for the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively. In 2021 the capital expenditures mainly focused on the investment in building and future projects in the industry and especially automotive sector to be able to perform new production technologies in-house.

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These metrics include both IFRS and non-IFRS measures. Our management and supervisory board utilize both IFRS and non-IFRS measures in a number of ways, including to facilitate the determination of our allocation of resources, to measure our performance against budgeted and forecasted financial plans and to establish and measure a portion of management’s compensation. Our management and supervisory boards believe EBITDA is a helpful tool in understanding certain aspects of our financial performance and is an important supplemental measure of operating performance because it eliminates items that may have less bearing on our operating performance and highlight trends that may not otherwise be apparent when relying solely on IFRS financial measures. We also believe that EBITDA is useful to investors and other users of our financial statements in evaluating our performance because this measure is used by our management and supervisory board for these purposes.

While we use EBITDA as a tool to enhance our understanding of certain aspects of our financial performance, we do not believe that this non-IFRS measure is a substitute for, or is superior to, the information provided by IFRS results. As such, the presentation of EBITDA is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for any measure prepared in accordance with IFRS. The primary limitations associated with the use of non-IFRS measures as compared to IFRS results are that non-IFRS measures may not be comparable to similarly titled measures used by other companies in our industry and that non-IFRS measures may exclude financial information that some investors may consider important in evaluating our performance. Because of these and other limitations, you should consider our non-IFRS measure alongside the directly comparable IFRS-based financial performance measure, including our net profit/(loss), net profit margin and our other IFRS financial results. Management addresses the inherent limitations associated with using non-IFRS measures through disclosure of such limitations, presentation of our financial statements in accordance with IFRS and reconciliation of EBITDA and net profit/(loss). Further, management also reviews IFRS measures and measures such as our level of capital expenditures, research and development expenditures, and interest expense, among other items.

Set forth below are reconciliations of each non-IFRS measure to the most directly comparable financial measure prepared in accordance with IFRS, in order to enable investors to perform their own analysis of our operating results.

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*The 2020 and 2019 consolidated statements of operations and other comprehensive income (loss) have been restated to correct an error. Refer to Note 2.3 of the 2021 consolidated financial statements for additional information.

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Our key financial metrics by segment are as follows:

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*EBITDA is calculated based on gross profit, deducting other operating income / expenses and adding depreciation and amortization expenses.

**Certain amounts for 2019 and 2020 have been restated; see Note 2.3 of the financial statements.

In our display solutions segment, we focus on the development, production and sale of interactive display solutions using our optical bonding technology. We provide optical bonding on either a consignment basis (meaning our customer directly sources product components and we apply our patented Max VU bonding process to assemble such components) or a full service basis (meaning we source the necessary product components and perform the related optical bonding). In limited cases, we also offer licenses for our Max VU optical bonding processes and sell related bonding equipment to selected customers. Additionally, starting in 2019, we began providing certain customers with automotive camera module technology and research and development engineering services. For the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, we generated €154.7 million and €127.1 million, respectively, in revenue and €(5.7) million and €3.5 million, respectively, in operating losses from our display solutions segment.

In our sensor technologies segment, we focus on the development, production and sale of metal mesh touch sensors, both for use in our own enhanced display solutions and as component parts to third-party customers, and the development of other sensor components and technologies that can be incorporated into our interactive display solutions. For the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, we generated €26.1 million and €25.5 million, respectively, in revenue and €1.5 million and €0.5 million, respectively, in operating income from our sensor technologies segment.

Our customers operate in the automotive, consumer electronics and industrial/specialized applications markets. Our offerings are foundational to our customers’ products and our customers rely upon us to meet their demanding production and quality specifications, as well as their inventory and quantity requirements. Our sales process is

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principally geared towards interactive display solutions using our optical bonding technology, customized metal mesh touch sensors and camera modules. Following our acquisition of a majority interest in VTS, we have further integrated the utilization of metal mesh touch sensors in the production of our touch-enabled enhanced display solutions to the extent that these sensors are compatible with our customers’ specifications. We also offer metal mesh touch sensors as a stand-alone product to third parties for integration in their products. We are increasingly focused on producing interactive display solutions, integrating our display and metal mesh touch sensor technology and expertise with advanced camera modules. We expanded our competencies and capabilities by acquiring Germaneers, a high-tech engineering company-focused on automotive system integration and user interfaces.  Further we formed a strategic partnership with SigmaSense, a global leader in touch sensing performance.   

Our customers and design partners include many of the world’s largest display and system manufacturers in the automotive, consumer electronics and industrial/specialized applications markets. We generally sell our products to OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers. Our technological expertise in combination with our deep customer and commercial partner collaborations, including our collaboration with Corning with respect to cold form glass technology, enables us to meet challenges and act as a sole source supplier for certain customers, including, for example, selected customers in ruggedized applications and the automotive industry. We market and sell our products and solutions primarily through our internal direct sales force, supported by outside sales representatives and distributors, including Toppan.

We often have significant engagement with and act as a design partner to the OEMs, who may be our direct customers or our indirect customers through their Tier-1 suppliers. We believe that engaging with OEM customers in their design activities provides us with an advantage over competitors who are not engaged in OEM design activities and provides us with early visibility into our customers’ technology and product roadmaps. This early access allows us to develop solutions that meet their long-term needs and best position ourselves for engagement on future business opportunities. We believe our track record of technological and product performance, high quality, cost effectiveness, and on-time deliveries have resulted in our position as a leading provider of optical bonding solutions and metal mesh touch sensors. We believe our strong relationship with our OEM and Tier-1 supplier customers, many of which are currently developing new products and applications that can incorporate our solutions, will also continue to position us as a source of supply for their future product offerings.

Our customers’ product life cycles vary significantly depending on their end-market, with consumer electronics being approximately 1-1.5 years, automotive being approximately 3-7 years and industrial/specialized applications being approximately 3-10+ years. The length of our product development and sales cycle in both of our segments, generally varies from nine months to three years during which time we often incur research and development, production and other costs, much of which may not be reimbursed. Accordingly, significant revenues may only be recognized much later than when a product is initially introduced for sale and we may not see a positive margin impact from a new customer contract for several years, if at all. Therefore, revenue from our current products, projects or customer portfolio is not necessarily an indicator of our future sales or profitability, because our future sales are likely to be comprised of a different mix of products which have different margin profiles.

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We consider design wins to be critical to our future success. We currently define a design win based on (1) when we receive a customer business award/nomination letter (which is normally before any new product innovation (“NPI”) development); [and/or] (2) when we receive a purchase order from a customer for samples, non-recurring engineering (“NRE”) costs (such as development cost, cost of qualification tests and certifications), and tooling costs, which is associated with a customer’s desire to design a real product with a customer plan to go into mass production. The revenue that we generate, if any, from each design win, and the cost incurred to achieve each design win and prepare for production of the products, can be material and can vary significantly. The product development process for our OEM, Tier-1 supplier and other customers can be lengthy, and in some instances may last for longer than two years. We may not earn revenue from our solutions unless and until products featuring our technologies are shipped to our customers, and prior to such time we may incur unreimbursed costs, which at times may be significant, for product development. Our sales expectations are based on forecasts from our existing customers, internal estimates of existing and potential customer demands and internal estimates of overall market trends. We anticipate that our costs in connection with new design wins will increase as we pursue additional opportunities with new and existing customers, including in furtherance of our strategy of becoming an interactive display system provider.

Investment in Growth.   We have invested in our business and intend to continue making such investments and increasing our headcount to expand our operations and develop our products and differentiated technologies to support our growth and expand our infrastructure. For the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, we incurred capital expenditures of €8.8 million and €3.8 million, respectively, in connection with continued investments in technical equipment, machines and other equipment in furtherance of our goal of becoming an interactive display system and camera solutions provider. We expect our total operating expenses to increase, potentially significantly, in the foreseeable future to meet our growth objectives. We plan to continue to invest in our sales and support operations to further broaden our support and coverage of our existing customer base, in addition to developing new customer relationships and generating design wins. We also intend to continue to invest additional resources and tools in research and development to support the development of our products and differentiated technologies. For the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, our research and development expenses were €4.5 million and €3.2 million, respectively, and are principally related to increased research and development costs associated with camera module technology. This includes current year expenses for projects in research and development which were initiated in prior periods. We expect that our research and development expenses, including prototype development costs related to future automotive projects, will increase, potentially significantly, in the future as we pursue additional opportunities and in furtherance of our strategies. Any investments we make in our sales and marketing operations or research and development will occur in advance of experiencing any benefits from such investments, and the return on these investments may be lower than we expect or be nonexistent.

Pricing and Product Cost.   Our gross margin has been and will continue to be affected by a variety of factors, including the timing of changes in pricing, changes in our product mix, shipment volumes, market prices for our customers’ products, changes in the purchase price of our raw materials and changes in the purchase price of third-party components integrated into our enhanced display solutions and direct labor costs. In general, newly introduced products and products with higher performance and functionality, as well as more complex displays used in more challenging and demanding environments (such as industrial/specialized applications), tend to be priced higher than more mature products or products with fewer features (such as in the consumer market). In addition, as we shift production of certain of our products out of China and expand production capacity in other geographies, we expect that our labor costs may increase and we may not be able to pass the increased costs on to our customers. We expect that in certain cases the average selling prices during the life cycle of our project related products can decline as they mature. When selling prices decline, we seek to offset this effect by reducing our costs of raw materials and components as part of our overall manufacturing expenses. If we are unable to maintain overall average selling prices or offset any declines in average selling prices with realized savings on product costs, our gross margin will decline. Additionally, as a result of the volatility of the global supply chain, transportation costs, have increased A positioning as Tier1 supplier would further improve our positioning toward our current and future customer base.

The Ability of our Customers to Produce and Sell Their Products.   Our customers generally use our products and solutions as a component or a portion of their offerings to their own customers, who in turn sell these offerings to end users. Accordingly, our success depends in large part on the ability of our customers to market and sell their offerings that incorporate our products and solutions. Our customers’ product offerings are usually complex and may involve many different systems and components, and their ability to sell their products depends on many factors, including the availability of component parts, raw materials and other necessary services; the proper functioning of each of these components and the timeliness and effectiveness of their own processes. Supply or production delays, raw

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material shortages or the failure or under-performance of components unrelated to our products and solutions may impact our business even when we are able to deliver our products and services timely and defect-free. These factors may cause delays in our customers’ production cycles, may cause our customers to cut back or delay their purchases of our products and solutions or may lead them to cease purchases from us entirely for periods of time while they address their production issues. Because our customer agreements typically do not specify minimum order requirements by our customers, our customers usually have no obligation to purchase our solutions if they experience supply issues unrelated to our solutions, or to make any prepayments to us. The current component shortage can adversely affect our supply chains, logistics, and the availability of our workforce, and there can be no assurance that our cost saving initiatives will be successful or that COVID-19 won’t have an adverse impact on our revenue in future.

Our Customer Mix.   We operate in two segments and deliver products to customers in three different end-markets: automotive, consumer electronics and industrial/specialized applications. We sell different types of products into our various customer end-markets such as displays or cameras for automotive interior applications (e.g. dashboard integrated, rear-seat) or in exterior application to manage (ADAS and access applications) (automotive), touch displays for consumer appliances (consumer electronics) and highly readable displays for different industrial or medical machines (industrial/specialized applications).. Since 2018, our sales mix has moved toward a more balanced portfolio with the largest concentration in industrial applications followed by consumer and automotive applications. This change in sales mix by end-market is expected to improve our gross margin, as sales to customers in the consumer end-market usually contribute lower gross margin in comparison to those to customers in the automotive and industrial/specialized applications end-markets, as our gross margins generally are higher with more specialized product development. We expect to achieve our targeted share of the industrial/specialized end-market in the coming years. In our sensor technology segment, most of our product sales are used in consumer-related products; however, we are seeing increased use by customers with products in the automotive and industrial/specialized applications end-market.

Based on historical experience, revenue in the first quarter is typically the lowest in the year. This dynamic also continued for the year 2021, however, there can be no assurance that those historical trends will continue in future periods.

Product Development Efforts and Product Lifecycles of our Existing and Potential Customers.   Our customers’ product life cycles, or the time they wish to purchase and use a particular design, vary significantly depending on their end-market, typically lasting multiple years. Based on our experience, we typically expect life cycles to be approximately one to three years for consumer electronics, three to seven years in automotive and three to ten or more years in industrial/specialized applications. We estimate our customers’ product life cycles on a case-by-case basis, given the close contacts we have with our customers. For consumer electronics products, it typically takes us approximately three months to complete conceptual requests for information, or RFIs, approximately three months to receive requests for quotes, or RFQs, or business awards, approximately six months to complete development and sampling before we commence commercial shipments, and one to one and a half years to ramp up mass production, and we provide ongoing service for an additional two to three years. For automotive applications, it typically takes us approximately six months to one year to support conceptual RFIs or RFQs (i.e., to generate and work on quotes from suppliers, which includes negotiating pricing and terms with suppliers and modifying quotations based on customers’ changes to requirements in this phase), or until we receive business awards, then two to three years to complete development and sampling before we commence commercial shipments, and six months to one year to ramp up mass production, and we provide ongoing service for an additional eight to ten years. For industrial/specialized applications, it typically takes us approximately one to two years to support conceptual RFIs or RFQs, or until we receive business award, one to one and a half years to complete development and sampling before we commence commercial shipments, and six months to three years to ramp up mass production, and we provide ongoing service for an additional one to ten years. Consumer electronics products generally have shorter development timelines and automotive and industrialized/specialized products have longer development timelines. As noted above, costs we incur to develop and produce new products can be significant and may not be reimbursed. Commercial shipments of our products can continue for a period exceeding ten years, depending on the end-market or application.

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Volatility of Revenues and Operating Cost Levels Due to Currency Exchange Fluctuations. With our multinational presence and our need to source materials from multiple locations to produce our enhanced display solutions and sensor technology, we incur revenues and operating costs in currencies other than the Euro. Any currency fluctuation can lead to a corresponding effect on those revenues and operating costs, which in turn can have a material impact on our net income (loss) and EBITDA in certain periods. Additional information on transaction and currency translation risks and our efforts to manage them are contained in "—Item 11. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosure About Market Risk."

Volatility of Global Supply Chain. Global supply chain disruptions, including those caused by COVID-19, ten-year highs in many commodity prices, weather-related events, transportation capacity limitations, port congestion, and energy consumption and intensity restrictions, have resulted in unpredictable supply shortages and material delivery disturbances, especially related to Chinese-based suppliers. Over the course of 2021, different variants of COVID-19, including the Delta variant and the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus, has led to increased incidence of COVID-19 in China prompting stricter quarantine measures which has resulted in port closures, among other things. Given that we have been subject to disruptions in our operations and supply chain as a result of COVID-19 in China, we also face challenges in supplying and shipping to our customers domestically and internationally, which may impact our revenue. Additional information can be found in “Item 3. Key Information—D. Risk Factors — Risks Related to Our Business and Industry — We have substantial sales and operations in China, which exposes us to risks inherent in doing business there.” Sudden shortages or component terminations will lead to additional product change necessities (e.g. redesign and re-qualifications with significant costs or efforts, which cannot be reimbursed). Global supply chains have also been impacted by increased transportation costs, including increases from higher or fluctuating passed-through energy costs or fuel surcharges, and other costs to comply with tightening regulations, as well as higher volumes of rail and water shipments. Increased transportation prices of components that we source based on Ex Works or Free Carrier terms could result in a reduction of gross margin, unless our customers agree to a price increase to offset part or all of the price increases. Furthermore, suppliers, especially single source suppliers, who deliver components on Delivered at Place or Delivery Duty Paid terms, might try to increase their prices whenever contractually possible. While we generally attempt to pass increased costs, including higher energy and transportation costs, on to our customers, pricing pressure from our competitors, the market power of our customers or other pricing factors may limit our ability to do so, and any increases in energy and transportation costs could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations.

Corporate Developments

In May 2021, we acquired Germaneers GmbH a high-tech engineering company focusing on automotive system integration and user interfaces. Germaneers has provided solutions for a range of well-known high-end original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Refer to Note 5 of the financial statements.

In June 2021, we formed a strategic partnership with SigmaSense, a global leader in touch sensing performance. As part of the strategic partnership, VIA has made a financial investment into SigmaSense and expanded the collaboration to develop new touch solutions for automotive applications, industrial displays and consumer electronics. In June 2021, VIA purchased a convertible promissory note for $900,000 (the “Note”). The Note had an interest rate of 6.0% per annum and was converted into Series B-1 shares of SigmaSense in 2021.In September 2021 we incorporated a new entity in the Philippines, VIA optronics (Philippines), Inc. (“VIA Philippines”), to provide customized and platform camera solutions, from design and development to process testing and quality control. VIA Philippines was incorporated to facilitate the integration of a camera design and development team that was previously a part of Integrated Micro-Electronics, Inc. (“IMI”), a Philippines-based company and VIA shareholder. Through a Service and Support Agreement (the “Agreement”), IMI has provided development support services through this team to the Company’s subsidiary, VIA optronics GmbH since January 2019. The Agreement was terminated on December 31, 2021 and the camera design and development team formally become a part of the Company in January 2022, with approximately 20 employees joining VIA.

Recent Developments

The first months of 2022 are still significantly influenced by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has significantly increased energy costs.

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The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in supply chain challenges, increased prices of certain raw materials and components, and reduced transport capacity. Further, the quarantines in China have further increased our supply chain disruptions, increased costs of productions and led to closures of our production facilities. These effects may lead to reduced production volumes and less revenue, which may or may not be recoverable in the following months.

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Key Components of our Results of Operations

We consider a variety of performance and financial metrics to assess the performance of our business. The following discussion describes the components of our statement of operations and other comprehensive income (loss) and certain key factors affecting our results of operations.

Revenue

Most of our revenue is derived from the sale of our enhanced display solutions and metal mesh touch sensors. We also derive revenue from the provision of optical bonding services and from licensing of our optical bonding process and related sale of equipment. Additionally, beginning in 2019, our display solutions segment began generating revenues from providing automotive camera module research and development engineering services to certain customers. As a company with a global reach, our revenues are generated from sales to customers located in markets in Asia, Europe and the Americas (North and South America). In the segment footnote to the financial statements, included in this annual report, we present revenues based on the geographical location of our subsidiary that bills the customer in footnote 26.

Cost of Sales

Our total cost of sales consists of the costs associated with the manufacturing (including raw materials costs) and distribution of our products and other costs (e.g., depreciation and amortization, production-related personnel expenses, freight expenses, inventory write downs, repair of production machinery, rework, warehousing and product warranty). We also incurred personnel, seconded personnel and equipment costs related to delivering automotive camera module research and development engineering services. Certain of our traditionally fixed costs, such as production related personnel expenses may transition to variable costs as we more efficiently apply the automated aspects of our production lines to reduce labor and associated overhead costs.

Gross Profit

Our gross profit is the difference between our revenue and our cost of sales.

Selling Expenses

Our selling expenses mainly consist of personnel expenses (including wages, salaries and bonuses, and social security costs) for our sales and marketing staff, marketing and advertising expenses, internal cost allocations, travel and other expenses. Other expenses include rental fees, car fleet expenses, depreciation and amortization, and sales representative and distributor commissions. Our marketing and advertising expenses are comprised of fees for our attendance at industry fairs, advertisements, press services, web-based marketing as well as other marketing expenses, including product samples used to market our solutions. As a result of our international expansion and increasing complexity of our enhanced display solutions, as well as anticipated increases in revenues, we believe that our total selling expenses are likely to increase both in absolute terms and as a percentage of revenues over the next few years.

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General Administrative Expenses

Our general administrative expenses mainly consist of personnel expenses (including wages, salaries and bonuses, and social security costs) for our administrative staff, rent, building and maintenance expenses as well as other expenses. The other expenses include items such as legal, consulting and audit fees, general maintenance expenses, fees for third party services, depreciation and amortization, travel expenses as well as insurance premiums.

Research and Development Expenses

We incur research and development expenses in connection with the design and development of our solutions, including to improve the technical capabilities of our product offerings generally and in connection with project-based client-driven specifications and requirements. Our research and development expenses consist of personnel expenses, fees for third-party research and development services, supplies and other expenses. We expect that our research and development expenses could increase as a percentage of revenue to the extent that our development and design costs, specifically within automotive applications, increase and as we focus increasingly on developing products and services directly for automotive customers as well as research and development relating to interactive display solutions and other camera-enhanced displays, three dimensional displays, new sensor technologies, software enhancements and embedded computing.

We incur research and development costs in relation to internal research and development projects. Product development costs under IFRS are generally required to be capitalized if the product being developed is technically and commercially viable, the costs of the development can be measured reliably, there are probable future economic benefits from the development and we have sufficient intent and resources to complete the development and use or sell the resulting asset. Other development expenditures that do not meet these criteria are expensed as incurred.

Other Operating Income and Expenses

Our other operating income and expense consists of income from foreign currency translation gains or losses, losses on disposal of fixed assets, non-income taxes, bad debt provisions, damages/insurance proceeds, indemnities due to inadequate quality of third-party materials received by us, and miscellaneous income or expense. Foreign currency transaction gains or losses arise from transactions denominated in a foreign currency when the translation date and settlement date differ.

Financial Result

Financial result is financial income less financial expenses. Financial income consists of interest income on our cash and cash equivalents. Interest income is recognized as it accrues, using the effective interest method. Financial expenses include interest expenses related to our financing facilities, negative interest rates on our cash and the impact of currency exchange fluctuations on the principal balance of our outstanding financing facilities that are denominated in currencies other than Euros.

Income Tax Expenses

The income tax expense for the period comprises current and deferred income tax. Income taxes are recognized in the income statement, except to the extent that it relates to items recognized in other comprehensive income or directly in equity.

Change in Functional Currency

For the years ended December 31, 2020, and all prior periods, the functional currencies of the Companies of the VIA Group were considered to be the respective local currencies.

Following thorough analysis VIA determined that the functional currency for two of its major group subsidiaries – VIA optronics GmbH and VIA optronics (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. should change as both subsidiaries currently generate revenues and expend cash for supplies predominantly in US dollars. Based on the development of these “primary indicators” the functional currency of those companies is changed from Euro and Renminbi, respectively to US dollars during 2021. In accordance with IAS 21, changes in functional currency are accounted for on a prospective basis.

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COVID-19 Pandemic

Since December 2019, a novel strain of coronavirus, COVID-19, has spread worldwide. In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of COVID-19 as a “pandemic” or worldwide spread of a new disease. In response, many countries around the world, including those in the European Union as well as the United States, have imposed quarantines and restrictions on travel and mass gatherings to slow the spread of the virus, and have closed non-essential businesses.

We continue to experience increases in prices of certain raw materials and shipping costs, transportation delays, disruptions in the supply chain as well as in overall logistics capabilities as a result of the current component shortage and there can be no assurance that our cost saving initiatives will be successful or that the COVID-19 pandemic won’t have an adverse impact on our revenue in the future. Moreover, we are limited in visiting our local operations due to quarantine restrictions. The further development of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022, including quarantine measures in Shanghai which have further impacted turnover and profit.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve, the ultimate extent of the impact of any epidemic, pandemic, outbreak, or other public health crisis on our business, financial condition and results of operations will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted, including new information that may emerge concerning the severity of such epidemic, pandemic, outbreak, or other public health crisis and actions taken to contain or prevent the further spread, among others. Accordingly, we cannot predict the extent to which our business, financial condition and results of operations will be affected.

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