Irish home-grown 'tech unicorn' firm, Flipdish plans to increase its revenues by 100% in 2023.
That is according to a company spokeswoman when asked to comment on new accounts showing that expansion costs at Flipdish Ltd resulted in pre-tax losses increasing six fold to €11.3 million in the 10 months to the end of January 31st last.
The sharp increase in the pre-tax losses at the digital ordering platform company coincided with revenues increasing by 10% from €12.7m to €13.99m.
The accounts - signed off on November 18th last - disclose in a post balance event that Flipdish is undergoing a restructure of the business.
The directors explain "to ensure Flipdish Ltd remains on a strong financial footing in a rapidly changing market and is equipped to grow, innovate and serve its expanding customer base, the group are carrying out a restructure which will have Flipdish Limited in a much stronger financial position".
The spokeswoman wouldn’t be drawn on the question if the restructure involved job losses.
She did state however "Flipdish, like the rest of the global tech industry, has been focusing on its business fundamentals to deliver on our projected growth for 2023."
Numbers employed in the 10 months under review increased by 56% from 157 to 245.
Staff costs last year almost doubled from €7.17m to €13.29m. Pay to key management personnel increased sharply from €542,696 to €1.12 million.
Pay to directors increased from €389,435 to €456,294.
The firm last year became another of Ireland’s home grown ‘tech unicorn’ after a $100m investment led by Chinese conglomerate Tencent.
The funding, which followed a $48.5m investment from Tiger Global Management early in 2021, valued the company at $1.25bn.
The new accounts show that Tencent led investment has equipped the business with the financial firepower for further expansion and strengthened the company’s balance sheet.
At the end of January last, the firm’s shareholder funds had increased from €21.2m to €91.65m.
The company’s cash funds increased from €20.5m to €91.9m.
The loss last year takes account of Government grants received of €439,881 and a Research and Development tax credit of €502,489.
The loss also takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €219,210.
Founded only in 2015 by brothers Conor and James McCarthy, Flipdish’s technology is used by over 7,500 customers in 32 countries generating order revenues in excess of €250m.
Those customers include some of the leading brands in the industry including Cojean, Subway, Base Pizza and Bombay Pantry.
Flipdish positions itself as an alternative to the likes of Deliveroo and Just Eat.
Tencent paid approximately $80 million for close to 8% of the business.
The company’s revenues last year show Irish revenues of €7.38m and ‘rest of world’ revenues of €6.6m.
A breakdown of the numbers employed show numbers in sales increased to 72 while numbers employed in technology totalled 68. A further 35 were employed in operations, 16 in marketing, 31 in customer operations, 13 in office and 10 in finance.
Reporting by Gordon Deegan
