Food waste campaigner Oddbox has recorded another year of losses as revenue growth reversed amid challenging market conditions for DTC providers.
Sales at the wonky veg delivery firm declined 8% to £29.7m in the year ended 30 June 2023, new accounts revealed.
The fall resulted in a second consecutive year in the red, with pre-tax losses of £3.7m. It represented an improvement on the previous year’s £4.8m deficit as cost of sales, distribution costs and administrative expenses were all reduced.
The accounts also showed EBITDA losses moved from -£4.5m to -£2.9m in 2022/23.
Odd Box CEO and co-founder Emilie Vanpoperinghe said, in the accounts, the performance reflected the investment needed to grow the customer base and improve its systems.
Revenues at the business soared during the pandemic from just £3.4m in 2019 to more than £30m in 2021, with the business building a subscriber base of 75,000-plus customers.
Vanpoperinghe founded the business with Deepak Ravindran in 2016 to work directly with growers on a mission to rescue odd-shaped and surplus fresh produce from going to waste.
The Companies House accounts showed the business issued convertible loan notes worth £7.5m during the year, which including £4.5m to exisiting shareholders Burda Principal Investments and Mercia VCT and £1.1m to crowd investors as part of a Seedrs round. It also secured £1.5m worth of backing from Channel 4 in a media for equity deal. All the loan notes, which can be converted to equity, have an interest charge of 10% a year.
It means Oddbox has raised about £30m so far across several rounds.
Oddbox did not respond to a request for comment.
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