Expansion costs combined with redundancy pay-outs contributed to post tax losses at Irish home-grown "tech unicorn" Flipdish more than doubling to €27m this year.
New accounts show that post tax losses at Flipdish Ltd increased by 136% from €11.43m to €27m.
The digital ordering platform company recorded the losses as it continued on its growth path with revenues of €18.2m in the 12 months to the end of January 31st this year compared to revenues of €13.99m for the prior accounting year, which ran for 10 months.
The biggest contributor to the firm's losses was the company's administrative expenses rising by 90% from €20.6m to €39.06m.
The largest component of its administrative expenses was "wages and salaries", which almost doubled from €11.8m to €20m.
The firm also incurred redundancy costs of €1.76m after having no cost under that heading in the prior 10 months.
The directors state that the group "has recently undergone a business reorganisation so as to allow it to focus more concretely on quick service and delivery first restaurants in our core markets, with a renewed focus on managing costs and achieving profitability".
The directors confirm that the business acquired the UK-based Jinoby Technologies Ltd for €5.5m in November 2022.
Numbers employed by Flipdish Ltd in the 12 months under review increased by 24 from 216 to 240.
Staff costs increased from €13.29m to €24.05m. Staff costs include €1.13m paid to key management personnel.
Directors' remuneration remained static, coming in at €551,831 compared to €456,294 the previous year, because the period covered by the latest accounts was two months longer.
The firm last year became another of Ireland’s home grown "tech unicorns" 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 $1.25 billion.
At the end of January last, the firm’s shareholder funds had decreased from €92.17m to €67m after the €27m losses.
The group's cash funds decreased from €92.54m to €57m.
The loss takes account of a Research and Development tax credit of €1.36m.
It also takes account of non-cash depreciation and amortisation costs of €873,159.
Founded only in 2015 by brothers Conor and James McCarthy, Flipdish's technology is used by more than 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 $80m for close to 8% of the business.
The company’s revenues last year show Irish revenues of €7.48m and "rest of world" revenues of €10.72m.
A breakdown of the numbers employed show numbers in sales increased to 70 while numbers employed in technology totalled 69.
A further 28 were employed in operations, 14 in marketing, 34 in customer operations, 15 in office and 10 in finance.
Reporting by Gordon Deegan
