Versus Systems Inc

Our Mission

Our mission is to reinvent the way our customers interact with consumers through live events, games, apps and streaming content.

Our Company

We offer a suite of proprietary business-to-business software tools that are meant to drive user engagement through gamification and rewards. These tools allow our partners to offer in-game prizing and rewards, including merchandise, coupons, digital goods, and sweepstakes entries — inside their websites, their venues, or their streaming media content.

Our customers are mostly sports teams, venues, and advertising agencies, which typically use our products as part of their live events or as part of an advertising campaign with the goal of engaging fans, increasing consented first-party data, and increasing sales.

Our products and games are designed so that end users of our products can earn prizes by registering on our system and completing in-content challenges like trivia, polls, or casual mobile games. Players can use our system to play a variety of games and earn a wide range of prize types, provided by advertisers and sponsors. Our products, include our in-venue XEO and Filter Fan Cam products for live events, and our new stand-alone “Winfinite” product that can be used by brands, advertising agencies, and content partners to reach potential customers outside of sports venues, on mobile devices. We also have an IP portfolio that can create future licensing and product development opportunities including our recently allowed Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) and Machine Learning (“ML”) series of patent claims.

With the acquisition of Xcite Interactive in June 2021, we acquired a number of key pieces of technology and relationships that have helped to drive our engagement and rewards business, including a live events fan engagement business that has partnered with professional sports franchises in the National Football League (“NFL”), the National Basketball Association (“NBA”), the National Hockey League (“NHL”) and others to increase audience engagement using interactive gaming functions like trivia, polling, and casual games that can be played alongside live experiences whether a player is at-home, in a restaurant, or in-venue at the event itself. Our three largest customers in 2023 were the San Jose Sharks, the Sacramento Kings, and ENT Marketing, a marketing agency that used our platform to promote Coca-Cola products.

We now have three principal software products. Our eXtreme Engagement Online or “XEO” platform is designed primarily for in-venue main-board work in stadiums and arenas. Our Filter Fan Cam (“FFC”) platform is an Augmented Reality filtering tool that can be used for mobile and in-venue applications. In addition, we have a stand-alone gaming and prizing product that we call “Winfinite,” which allows brands, media companies, and advertising agencies to reach out to customers directly on their mobile devices. We license these three software products to teams, ad agencies, and other content creators.

Our Products and Services

We provide the following products and services to our partners and customers:

Research and Development

Our research and development team, including in-house and as-needed contract resources, consists of technical engineering, product management, and user experience, and is responsible for the design, architecture, creation, and quality of our platform. We have invested substantial resources in research and development to enhance our platform features and functionalities and expand the services we offer. We believe the timely development of new, and the enhancement of our existing, services and platform features would enhance our competitive position. We utilize an agile development process to deliver software releases, fixes and updates.

Competition

Interactive media, live-events, in-venue advertising, and rewarded advertising are all highly competitive businesses, characterized by increasing product introductions and rapidly-emerging new platforms and technologies. With respect to competing for customers for our platform, we will compete primarily on the basis of functionality, quality, brand and customer reviews. We will compete for platform placement based on these factors, as well as our relationship with the content owner, historical performance, perception of sales potential and relationships with owners and licensors of brands, properties and other content.

We believe that our small size will provide us some amount of a competitive edge in the near term as we are able to make quick decisions to take advantage of customer preferences and emerging technologies like AI.

With respect to our prizing and rewards platform, we compete with a continually increasing number of companies, including industry leaders such as TapJoy, Honey, Rakuten, and Otello who make their money largely on the free-to-play or free-to-use distribution of coupons and rewards. Beyond these direct competitors, we face a certain amount of competition from pay-to-play “rewards” companies like Skillz, FanDuel, or DraftKings that also use games and monetary rewards to drive user growth – although in their case, they derive the majority of their revenues directly from users rather than brands and sponsors.

We also face increased competition from large media and technology companies with significant online presences, such as Apple, Alphabet/Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix Shopify, or Yahoo, as those companies move to expand their interactive offerings. This competition could increase if these larger industry players begin to add prizing or rewards into their offerings.

We are also aware of the increasing role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the personalized content space, including personalized advertising. We have been researching the space for a number of years and have been filing patents with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to protect our uses of AI and Machine Learning (ML) in trying to optimize both the player and partner experience, but we are aware that the AI space is filled with larger, and better-funded teams, including those from Microsoft, Google, and others.

In addition, given the open nature of the development and distribution for smartphones and tablets, we also compete or will compete with a vast number of small companies and individuals in all of our segments who are able to create and launch software programs and platforms for these devices using relatively limited resources and with relatively limited start-up time or expertise.

Most of our competitors and our potential competitors have one or more advantages over us, including:

Government Regulation

We are involved in a variety of areas that are subject to governmental oversight. While we have developed a flexible platform designed to adjust to a changing legal and regulatory landscape, there are a number of areas where federal, state and international law could force us to make significant adjustments to our strategies and deployment efforts. As such, as with many companies in both the software and advertising spaces, there are risks associated with the potential impacts of government regulation.

As a company that facilitates the distribution of real-world prizes for in-game and online activities, we are, in some cases and for some campaigns, subject to laws that surround sweepstakes, contests, and games of skill. While we use best efforts to ensure that all contests are compliant with federal, state, and local laws pertaining to the game type, contest type, prize type, and the eligibility of individual players, among other concerns, we are subject to those regulations and those regulations may change. We have filed patents, and have been granted certain patent claims, protecting our ability to use player characteristics like player location, player age, and contest type to adjust eligibility in specific contests with the intent of providing dynamic regulatory compliance. We also have also designed the platform to make it possible to expeditiously cease providing prizes in certain jurisdictions, or cease offering certain types of contests, such as sweepstakes or other contest types, if that becomes necessary. If necessary, we can make these changes without interruption to our campaigns and contests in other jurisdictions.

Certain of our campaigns and contests may be subject to laws and regulations applicable to companies engaged in skill-based contests. As we partner with our brand and content partners to offer prizes that players may earn as a result of their in-game activities, we may be subject in some cases to the federal Deceptive Mail Prevention and Enforcement Act as well as certain state prize, gift, or sweepstakes statutes that may apply to certain experiences that we or our customers and partners may run from time to time. Our system does allow us to adjust terms of service to account for this and other acts. We may also choose not to offer certain campaigns, contests or prizes in certain areas because of these regulations.

In addition, certain states prohibit, restrict, or regulate contests in a number of ways, particularly with respect to payment of entry fees, and the size, value, and/or source of prizes to participants in such contests. Certain other states require companies to register and/or insure certain types of contests. While we do not typically require entry fees or consideration of any type from our players, and thus based on legal research conducted, are not subject to these regulations in most cases, we do remain conscious of these regulations. We may choose to not offer certain prizes or certain contests in certain areas due to these regulations. We can do so without interruption to other services and other jurisdictions. While at this time, our operations are not subject to certain regulations, for example the pay-to-play regulations, given that our platform is free-to-play, we are conscious that because the nature of our services is relatively new and is rapidly evolving, we may not be able to accurately predict which regulations will be applied to our business. We may also at some point become subject to new or amended regulations.

Further, our online in-game prizing and rewards platform, which may be integrated into games whose player bases include individuals ranging from elementary school age children to adults, is subject to laws and regulations relating to privacy and child protection. Through our applications and online platform, we, and the content creators, owners and platform owners that incorporate our proprietary platform into their media or hardware, may monitor and collect certain information about child users of these games and forums. A variety of laws and regulations have been adopted in recent years aimed at protecting children using the internet, such as the Federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA). COPPA sets forth, among other things, a number of restrictions related to what information may be collected with respect to children under the age of 13, as the kinds of content that website operators may present to children under such age. There are also a variety of laws and regulations governing individual privacy and the protection and use of information collected from individuals, particularly in relation to an individual’s personally identifiable information (e.g., credit card numbers). We currently employ multiple measures to ensure that we are COPPA-compliant. We screen for age at registration, we address the issue in our terms of service, and we employ a kick-out procedure during member registration whereby anyone identifying themselves as being under the age of 13 during the process may not register for a player account on our website or participate in any of our online experiences or tournaments without linking their account to that of a parent or guardian.

Such regulation would have a material adverse effect on our business and operations. In the area of information security and data protection, many states have passed laws requiring notification to users when there is a security breach for personal data, such as the 2002 amendment to California’s Information Practices Act, or requiring the adoption of minimum information security standards that are often vaguely defined and difficult to implement. And while we believe that we are currently in compliance with these and other data protection regulations, including the privacy regulations set out below, the costs of compliance with these laws may increase in the future as a result of changes in interpretation. Furthermore, any failure on our part to comply with these laws may subject us to significant liabilities.

We are also subject to federal, state and foreign laws regarding privacy and protection of our users’ personal information and related data, including the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which took effect in January 2020, providing California residents increased privacy rights and protections, including the ability to opt out of sales of their personal information; and we are subject to the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which took effect in May 2018 and established requirements applicable to the handling of personal information of EU residents. The CCPA may increase our compliance costs and exposure to liability. Other U.S. states are considering adopting similar laws.

We post our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy on our website where we set forth our practices concerning the use, transmission and disclosure of player data. We also require players to agree to these terms when they register for our service. Our failure to comply with our posted privacy policy or privacy related laws and regulations could result in proceedings against us by governmental authorities or others, which could damage our reputation and business. In addition, the interpretation of data protection laws, and their application to the Internet is evolving and not settled. There is a risk that these laws may be interpreted and applied in an inconsistent manner by various states, countries and areas of the world where our users are located, and in a manner that is not consistent with our current data protection practices. Complying with these varying national and international requirements could cause us to incur additional costs and change our business practices. Further, any failure by us to adequately protect our users’ privacy and data could result in a loss of player confidence in our services and ultimately in a loss of players, which could adversely impact our business.

Based on legal research conducted, we believe we are currently in compliance with all applicable state and federal laws and regulations related to our business. We continually monitor our activity and changes in such laws in order to ensure, to the best extent possible, that we remain in compliance with such laws. State and federal regulation of internet-based activity, including online prizing and rewards, is evolving and there can be no assurance that future legislation, regulation, judicial decisions, US Attorney, or state attorney general actions will not restrict or prohibit activities such as those made possible by our platform.

Patents and Licenses

Our success and ability to compete depend substantially upon our core technology and intellectual property rights. We generally rely on patent, trademark and copyright laws, trade secret protection and confidentiality agreements to protect our intellectual property rights. In addition, we generally require employees and consultants to execute appropriate nondisclosure and proprietary rights agreements. These agreements acknowledge our exclusive ownership of intellectual property developed for us and require that all proprietary information remain confidential.

We maintain a program designed to identify technology that is appropriate for patent and trade secret protection, and we file patent applications in the United States and, when appropriate, certain other countries for inventions that we consider significant. Our patent claims, extending and expanding on claims filed in the United States in 2014 and internationally through the patent co-operation treaty in 2015, describe a system that seeks to match competitive game players and spectators with prizing from their favorite brands through a unique conditional prize matching system.

As of December 31, 2023, we had over 50 pending patent claims with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to expand upon our existing portfolio of prizing, promotion and financial technologies that enable brands to reach the rapidly growing competitive gaming audience of players, spectators and broadcasters. As of December 31, 2023, we had been granted five patents.

We also continue to engage in licensing transactions to secure the right to use third-parties’ patents. Although our business is not materially dependent upon any one patent, our patent rights and the products made and sold under our patents, taken as a whole, are a significant element of our business.

In addition to patents, we also possess other intellectual property, including trademarks, know-how, trade secrets, design rights and copyrights. We control access to and use of our software, technology and other proprietary information through internal and external controls, including contractual protections with employees, contractors, customers and partners. Our software is protected by U.S. and international copyright, patent and trade secret laws. Despite our efforts to protect our software, technology and other proprietary information, unauthorized parties may still copy or otherwise obtain and use our software, technology and other proprietary information. In addition, we have expanded our international operations, and effective patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret protection may not be available or may be limited in foreign countries.

Companies in the industry in which we operate frequently are sued or receive informal claims of patent infringement or infringement of other intellectual property rights. We may receive such claims from companies, including from competitors and customers, some of which have substantially more resources and have been developing relevant technology similar to ours. As and if we become more successful, we believe that competitors will be more likely to try to develop products that are similar to ours and that may infringe on our proprietary rights. It may also be more likely that competitors or other third parties will claim that our products infringe their proprietary rights. Successful claims of infringement by a third party, if any, could result in significant penalties or injunctions that could prevent us from selling some of our products in certain markets, result in settlements or judgments that require payment of significant royalties or damages or require us to expend time and money to develop non-infringing products. We cannot assure you that we do not currently infringe, or that we will not in the future infringe, upon any third-party patents or other proprietary rights, but will not and have never done so intentionally.

Corporate History and Structure

Versus Systems Inc., a corporation formed under the laws of British Columbia, was formed by way of an amalgamation under the name McAdam Resources, Inc. in the Province of Ontario on December 1, 1988 and subsequently extra-provincially registered in British Columbia on February 2, 1989. We changed our name to Boulder Mining Corporation on May 9, 1995 in Ontario and on September 25, 1996 in British Columbia. We continued into British Columbia on January 2, 2007 and concurrently changed our name to Opal Energy Corp. We changed our name to Versus Systems Inc. on June 30, 2016, and concurrently ceased or divested our mining related business and began operating our current software platform business.

In June 2021, we completed the acquisition of multimedia, production, and interactive gaming company Xcite Interactive, a provider of online audience engagement through its owned and operated XEO technology platform. We now provide products and services to multiple professional sports organizations across Major League Baseball, the NHL, and the NBA to drive audience engagement.

We operate through our majority-owned subsidiary, Versus LLC, a Nevada limited liability company that was organized on August 21, 2013, and through our wholly owned subsidiary, Xcite Interactive Inc, a Delaware corporation that was reorganized as such on April 1, 2019.

We are in the process of considering a number of strategic alternatives for our company focused on maximizing shareholder value, including, but not limited to, an acquisition, merger, reverse merger, sale of assets, strategic partnership, capital raise or other transaction. We are hopeful that our change in jurisdiction from British Columbia to Delaware, which we expect to effect in the second quarter of 2024, will more appropriately reflect our shift in strategy and will (i) improve our access to capital markets, increase funding and strategic flexibility and reduce the cost of capital, (ii) improve our ability to execute an acquisitive growth strategy using our capital stock as consideration, and (iii) better focus management efforts on each U.S. and international operation and better attract and retain key employees.

Our common shares are presently quoted on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbol “VS”. In January 2023, the bid price of our common shares closed below the Nasdaq minimum $1.00 per share requirement and on January 23, 2023 and July 25, 2023 we received notifications of noncompliance from Nasdaq. In accordance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5810(c)(3)(A), we were afforded until January 22, 2024 to regain compliance with the bid price requirement, which required that our common shares close at a price of at least $1.00 per share for a minimum of 10 consecutive trading days. On December 28, 2023, we effected a 1-for-16 reverse stock split of our common shares, which increased the closing bid price above $1.00 per share, and on January 16, 2024, Nasdaq notified us that we had regained compliance with the minimum bid price requirement.

Our principal executive offices in Canada are located at 1558 Hastings Street, Vancouver, British Columbia V6G 3J4 Canada, and our telephone number at that address is (604) 639-4457. We are a distributed organization and do not maintain offices in the United States, which is the country where all of our employees reside. Our mailing address in the United States is located at 10866 Washington Blvd #150, Culver City, CA 90232, and our telephone number in the United States is (424) 226-8588. Our website address iswww.versussystems.com. The information on or accessed through our website is not incorporated in this annual report. The SEC maintains an Internet site (www.sec.gov) that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issues that file electronically with the SEC.

The following chart reflects our organizational structure (including the jurisdiction of formation or incorporation of the various entities):

Employees

The following table summarizes our staff by main category of activity at December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022:

All of our employees are located in the United States and are predominantly full-time employees. We have never had a work stoppage, and none of our employees is represented by a labor organization or under any collective bargaining arrangements. We consider our employee relations to be good. All employees are subject to contractual agreements that specify requirements on confidentiality and restrictions on working for competitors, as well as other standard matters.

As of April 1, 2024, we had eight employees, including one in sales/marketing, two in engineering/product/design, one in accounts/operation, and four in general/administrative.