Irish tech "unicorn" group Wayflyer last year recorded post tax losses of €77.34m as its staff costs bill ballooned more than four fold to €54m.
In the first set of consolidated accounts for Wayflyer Ltd, they show that revenues at the group increased three fold from €12.19m to €36.33m in 2022.
However the Wayflyer Group's post tax losses increased more than three fold from €25m to €77.34 million as the company expanded.
Numbers employed by the group increased by 256 rising from 115 to 371 and staff costs increased by €39.93m, or 282%, from €14.12m to €54.05m.
In November of last year, the business moved to stem its rising losses by cutting costs and making 40% of its global workforce redundant with the loss of 200 jobs.
On the lay-offs, co-founder and ceo of Wayflyer, Aidan Corbett said at the time: "We tried to scale our organisation very aggressively over the past 15 months, and in hindsight, we tried to do too much, too soon."
The losses last year also take account of the group writing off in full €6.7m in goodwill arising from the purchase of influencer financing business Peblo.
Wayflyer - which counts Shane Lowry among its brand ambassadors - purchased Peblo in May 2022 but has decided to wind that business down to concentre on its core products and business.
The firm's losses last year also take account of a credit impairment of €9.3m and operating lease costs increasing from €880,940 to €3.5m.
Last month, the tech firm said that it turned its first monthly profit in October in a mile-stone for the business which provides e-commerce stores with affordable unsecured loans to allow them to fund advertising and inventory in advance of selling items.
The group - which also offers detailed analytics to help clients improve their sales performance - has confirmed that its revenues to date for 2023 have increased 75% on last year.
The company last year became Ireland's sixth unicorn, after raising $150m in funding to achieve a $1.6 billion valuation, and doing so in just two and a half years.
In a note attached to the new accounts, it states that the directors have noted that while the group has accumulated losses of €106.7m to date as a result of the business being in a start-up phase, the group has net assets of €115m "following a successful equity raise during the course of 2022".
The company’s cash funds last year more than doubled from €61.98m to €136.56m.
A breakdown of revenues show that the bulk of business is carried out in the US accounting for €22.02m of the €36.33m revenues, followed by the UK at €7.15m and "Rest of World" at €7.16m.
Reporting by Gordon Deegan
