Yopa losses widen to over £30m as it predicts ‘significantly improved performance’ ahead

Yopa losses widen to over £30m as it predicts ‘significantly improved performance’ ahead

Yopa made a pre-tax loss of over £30m, its latest accounts have reported.

Documentation filed at Companies House shows that in the 12 months to the end of 2018, Yopa made a loss of £30,365,369.

This compared with a loss of £18,332,269 for the year before.

However, Yopa says that 2018 was a “year of investment and strategic change”.

It says that its loss was a result of the investments made plus the launch of No Sale, No Fee, which meant deferred revenue.

The documentation says that the decisions made in 2018 and the first half of this year are “already starting to bear fruit and the company will see a significantly improved financial performance in the second half of 2019 and more fully in 2020”.

Yopa, which is backed by the investment arm of the Daily Mail’s owners, plus Savills and LSL, says in its newly filed accounts that there “remains sufficient opportunity for the business to grow and capture market share”.

The accounts show that despite its widening losses, Yopa’s revenue was up 60%, from some £4m to nearly £7m (£4,287,421 in 2017 to £6,857,065 last year).

Gross profit is started as up 32%, at £2,684,809, but a big jump in overheads – £33,050,375, up from £20,366,932 – helped it into actual losses.

Yopa’s cash in hand also declined, down from around £20m at the end of 2017 to some £10m at the end of last year.

Creditors with amounts falling due within one year went from £1m due to paid at the end of 2017 to about £2m at the end of last December.

Staff numbers also rose steeply last year – from 97 as at the end of 2017 to 200.

The accounts were signed off on September 27 this year, after the resignation of co-founder Dan Attia and the appointment of Grenville Turner as chairman, and just days before the departure of CEO Ben Poynter was announced on October 1.

The company, which currently has no CEO, received further investment of £16m in August this year by way of equity issue from existing investors with the exception of LSL which did not participate.