Ex-Dragon’s firm short on cash

CLOUD computing firm Outsourcery, co-owned by the former Dragons’ Den star Piers Linney, has said it needs to find short term working capital as it posts another year of losses.

The listed Manchester-based company, whose full results will be announced in June, said that adjusted losses from continuing operations – defined as earnings before restructuring costs, employee share based payment costs and listing fees – stood at £6.2m for the year to the end of December 2015 (2014: £6.3m loss).

Group revenues increased 9% to £8.1m but the company,  which has 110 employees, with offices in Manchester, London and Leicester, said revenue growth had been affected by partner product launch delays that were outside of its control.

In its trading update the company said it needs funding for short term working capital and that it is looking at ways it can meet these needs including fund raising, restructuring and the disposal of non-strategic business assets.  

It added that it is in an ongoing dialogue with its principal secured lender to agree certain consents required to allow for a solution to be implemented.

Last September technology entrepreneur Lawrence Jones, who owns cloud infrastructure business UKFast, invested more than £1m in taking a 10.5% stake in the loss-making  firm Outsourcery. He is the third-largest shareholder in Outsourcery behinds its co-chief executives Piers Linney and Simon Newton.