Ingenuity $90m cash burn is reducing fast as Moulding relishes private future

Moulding as Liam Gallagher

Never one to understate a major development in his business, THG founder Matthew Moulding has marked the successful demerger of Ingenuity, the powerful “engine” behind his ecommerce business with the release of a video edit of the 1995 Oasis song Wonderwall.

Starring Moulding as Liam Gallagher and various THG colleagues as band members, the video was released on LinkedIn alongside one of Moulding’s typically robust swipes at the City and his supposed doubters.

However, he is clearly looking forward to running Ingenuity as a private business, with THG Beauty, MyProtein, and other brands, as clients.

Last Friday, 89% of THG shareholders backed his plan to spin off the loss-making ecommerce platform into a separate company.

Ingenuity has 13 warehouses across the UK and employs about 3,800 people, with technology and fulfilment services to support online operations for retailers including The Range and Holland & Barrett. It also now counts Mike Ashley of Frasers amongst the shareholders and customers.

Moulding’s main complaint is that the London stock market simply doesn’t understand tech businesses with growth potential. 

He said: “Since THG joined the LSE 5 years ago, some labelled Ingenuity worthless, or worse, a huge liability. This is despite us investing $1.5bn over 20 years to build Ingenuity into a truly global platform that today services many of the world’s biggest brands. Ingenuity has c3,800 staff with annual revenues and profits/EBITDA approaching c$800m and c$35m respectively.

“Yes, Ingenuity had a cash burn of c$90m in 2024 as we invest in building out the proposition further, but this has been reducing fast as the business scales. This is the reality of tech investment: you build it first and then charge people to use it. You wouldn’t try charging for hotel rooms before a hotel was built, tech is no different.

“Spending endless energy proving otherwise to a UK market devoid of tech businesses is a zero-sum game. The UK’s much higher interest rates than Europe post Brexit hasn’t helped, with the dwindling capital pool of the LSE exacerbated further.”

For all of these reasons he describes the take private of Ingenuity as “the obvious solution”.

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