Global technology events business Web Summit has reported a sharp drop in pre-tax profits for 2022 as its revenues for the year rose.
Web Summit said its profit before tax tumbled to €326,484 from €4.347m in 2021, while its profit for the 2022 financial year, after depreciation and tax, sank to €114,166, down from €3.806m.
But its gross profit rose by 35% to €30.8m, up from €22.8m the previous year.
The company's revenues rose to €52.5m from €31.8m in 2022 as it recovered from the Covid pandemic, which had curtailed full scale in person events in both 2020 and 2021.
Web Summit said its Lisbon event in 2022 was a sold out event with 71,000 attendees, 2,300 startups and 342 partners from 160 countries, while its Collision event in Toronto had more that 36,000 attendees as well as over 1,500 startups and 250 partners from over 130 countries.
The company said that 2022 saw a 15% increase in the number of people employed by it, with headcount growing from 246 in 2021 to 283 in 2022.
By the end of 2022, Web Summit said it had more than €19m in cash reserves, adding that it continues to expand internationally as it scaled Collision and prepared for its first ever event in Latin America, Web Summit Rio.
The organisation said it also invested in laying the groundwork for its first ever Middle East event, which will take place later this month.
In October 2023, Web Summit appointed Katherine Maher as its new chief executive to replace Paddy Cosgrave, who resigned after a backlash over comments he made about the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Ms Maher last month said she was leaving the Web Summit CEO position to take up a new role as CEO of National Public Radio (NPR) in the US. She is remaining on as non-executive Chair of Web Summit and is due to take up her new role at NPR in March.
In today's results statement, Katherine Maher said that Web Summit is very confident that the "judicious investment" of so much of those 2022 revenues in global growth will prove successful as it heads towards what should be a record-breaking 2024.
"Web Summit was right to see that in a post-pandemic, hybrid-working world, getting together to make meaningful connections would be more important than it has ever been," the outgoing CEO said.
"That is why all our 2023 events sold out, why we expect to see double-digit revenue growth for 2023, why we have already shattered all our targets for our inaugural event in Qatar later this month, and why we anticipate our other 2024 events to be more successful than ever," she added.
