London-based payments fintech Curve close to halved pre-tax losses after cutting administrative costs, according to its latest financial results published Monday.
Founded in 2015, Curve wants its wallet product to become a so-called “Operating System for Money” which offers customers the ability to link their cards up to split purchases into instalments, pay abroad without foreign exchange fees and pay their bills with credit cards.
In financial results covering the year-end for 2023, Curve reported a pre-tax loss of £36m compared to £69.1m the year before. The company cut its administrative expenses from £57.2m to £36.1m during the same time period.
The fintech’s revenue grew from £22.1m to £26.7m. More than half of that came from interchange fees from transactions, followed by revenue from its subscription product and platform services (such as taking a fee from merchants offering rewards to customers).
A focus on fundraising
Curve’s auditors agreed with the directors’ assessment that the company will continue to operate for the foreseeable future. The fintech’s directors do note, however, that further fundraising will be required to sustain normal business operations, creating a “material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt on the group and company’s ability to continue”.
A Curve spokesperson told Sifted: “The language (‘material uncertainty’), is a standard auditing measure reflecting the fact that we’re a high-growth tech company raising capital to fund expansion.”
The company disclosed that it raised £29.8m in equity funding from new and existing investors in 2024 as well as £11.6m in debt from existing investors in May that year. Curve is “actively engaged” in another round of funding, the spokesperson said, which it expects to conclude soon.
Curve highlighted the further cost-cutting measures it took in 2024, as the fintech eyes profitability in its next annual results. It paused its US operations in July 2024, the results disclosed, two years after launching there.
“We remain committed to the US market and are laying the groundwork to ensure that when we scale there, we do it responsibly and with the right partnerships,” a spokesperson said.
Curve’s results align the company with its fellow UK loss-making payments fintechs. According to Sifted reporting, open banking payments company TrueLayer and direct debit fintech GoCardless are yet to reach profitability.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/curve-results-news/
