Serve Robotics Inc DE

Disclosure Controls and Procedures

Under the supervision of and with the participation of our management, including our principal executive officer and our principal financial officer, we conducted an evaluation of the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures as of December 31, 2023, the end of the period covered by this report on Form 10-K. The term “disclosure controls and procedures,” as set forth in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Exchange Act, means controls and other procedures of a company that are designed to provide reasonable assurance that information required to be disclosed by a company in the reports that it files or submits under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported, within the time periods specified in the rules and forms promulgated by the SEC. Disclosure controls and procedures include, without limitation, controls and procedures designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed by a company in the reports that it files or submits under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to the Company’s management, including its principal executive and principal financial officers, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.

In designing and evaluating our disclosure controls and procedures, management recognizes that disclosure controls and procedures, no matter how well conceived and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the disclosure controls and procedures are met. Additionally, in designing disclosure controls and procedures, our management necessarily was required to apply its judgment in evaluating the cost-benefit relationship of possible disclosure controls and procedures. The design of any system of controls also is based in part upon certain assumptions about the likelihood of future events, and there can be no assurance that any design will succeed in achieving its stated goals under all potential future conditions; over time, controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or the degree of compliance with policies or procedures may deteriorate. Because of the inherent limitations in a control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and not be detected.

As of December 31, 2023, we carried out an evaluation, under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, of the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Exchange Act Rule 13a-15(e)) pursuant to Rule 13a-15 of the Exchange Act. Based upon that evaluation, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures are not effective.

Management’s Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

This report does not include a report of management’s assessment regarding our internal control over financial reporting (as defined in Rule 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f) under the Exchange Act) as allowed by the SEC for reverse acquisitions between an issuer and a private operating company when it is not possible to conduct an assessment of the private operating company’s internal control over financial reporting in the period between the consummation date of the reverse acquisition and the date of management’s assessment of internal control over financial reporting (pursuant to Section 215.02 of the SEC Division of Corporation Finance’s Regulation S-K Compliance & Disclosure Interpretations).

As discussed elsewhere in this report, we consummated the Merger on July 31, 2023, pursuant to which we acquired Serve and its subsidiary. Prior to the Merger, we were a “shell company” (as defined in Rule 12b-2 under the Exchange Act). As a result, previously existing internal controls are no longer applicable or comprehensive enough as of the assessment date as our operations prior to the Merger were insignificant compared to those of the consolidated entity post-Merger. The design of our internal control over financial reporting following the Merger has required and will continue to require significant time and resources from management and other personnel. Because of this, the design and ongoing development of our framework for implementation and evaluation of internal control over financial reporting is in its preliminary stages. If management were to conduct an assessment regarding our internal control over financial reporting, however, its scope would include the criteria set forth by the Internal Control Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission. Based on an initial assessment, we concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was not effective as of December 31, 2023, because of the material weakness described below.

Material Weaknesses in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

Although management did not conduct a formal assessment of internal control over financial reporting, in connection with the audits of our consolidated financial statements for the years ended December 31, 2023, and 2022, management has identified material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting. Prior to the Merger, our size has prevented us from being able to employ sufficient resources to enable us to have an adequate level of supervision and segregation of duties. Therefore, management concluded that we did not have a comprehensive and formalized accounting and financial reporting policies and procedures manual which details the information needed for our financial reporting process and that we did not have a robust review process by which management could monitor for potential errors or technical accounting requirements, which have resulted in material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2023.

We intend to take measures to remediate the aforementioned material weaknesses, including, but not limited to, increasing the capacity of our qualified financial personnel to ensure that accounting policies and procedures are consistent across the organization and that we have adequate control over our Exchange Act reporting disclosures and implementing a formal policies and procedures manual for accounting and financial reporting. The material weaknesses will not be considered remediated until management designs and implements effective controls that operate for a sufficient period of time and management has concluded, through testing, that these controls are effective. Our management will monitor the effectiveness of our remediation plans and will make changes management determines to be appropriate.

Changes in Internal Controls over Financial Reporting

During the quarter ended December 31, 2023, there have been no changes in our internal control over financial reporting, as such term is defined in Rules 13a-15(f) and 15(d)-15(f) promulgated under the Exchange Act, that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.