Wayflyer sees losses narrow amid ‘efficiency drive’

Revenue at Irish tech company Wayfler rose and losses narrowed in 2023 as the firm continued to keep a tight grip on costs a year after cutting two-fifths of its workforce.
The company said turnover for 2023 was more than €62.5 million, according to accounts just filed with the Company’s Registration Office. That was up from €36.3 million a year earlier.
The firm also managed to trim costs from more than €82 million in 2022 to almost €68.5 million last year. That led to an operating loss before tax of €40.9 million, a significant reduction of 46 per cent from the previous year’s €76.9 million.
[ Has Fingal County Council found a solution to Ireland’s housing crisis?Opens in new window ]
Wayflyer provides ecommerce stores with affordable unsecured loans to allow them to fund advertising and inventory in advance of selling items. It also offers detailed analytics to help clients improve their sales performance.
Chief executive Aidan Corbett said the company had been undergoing an efficiency drive, while also growing the business.
“We need to make sure that we maintain growth,” he said.
That growth is coming from several sources. The first is its four core markets of the US, UK, Australia and Germany, with the latter emerging as a big one for Wayflyer this year, said Mr Corbett. Another is two new products that launched this year.
“One is where we finance brands that are selling through Amazon, and the second is brands that are actually selling through retailers — Boots or SuperValu or Tesco,” he said. “We’re enabling brands to access financing regardless of which channel they’re using. That massively increases our total addressable market, but it also means that brands that are selling through multiple channels, we can advance them more money because we’re doing it across all the revenue streams that they have.”
[ Wayflyer hits profitability, but will shutter influencer unit PebloOpens in new window ]
Wayflyer has also benefited from several of its competitors leaving the market in the past 18 months.
The company turned its first monthly profit in October last year, a milestone for the start-up. Mr Corbett said the plan was to continue on a path to consistent profitability.
Wayflyer was founded by Mr Corbett and Jack Pierse, who has since left the company, in 2019. After achieving a $1 billion valuation in 2022, the company hit a turbulent period during which it slashed 40 per cent of its global workforce — about 200 jobs — as it tried to cut costs and reduce cash-burn.