Losses accelerated ahead of Versarien founder’s departure

Versarien has revealed it lost £3.4m in six months when founder and chief executive Neill Ricketts departed in March.

The graphene manufacturing business has struggled with successfully commercialising its innovations and in February reported a pre-tax loss of £8.4m for the 18 months to September 2022.

But its losses accelerated in the six months to March, as revenues dropped by nearly one-third to £2.6m because of the ending of a key contract.

Turnaround specialist David Stone was brought in 10 weeks ago to aid the recovery plans

Diane Savory, non-executive chair of Versarien, believes its new strategy “will ensure a brighter future” for the company.

She said: “We have, with the assistance of David Stone and his team, been developing a strategy that focuses on maintaining appropriate IP to support our core end-sectors of construction and textiles whilst reducing cash-outflows to a level that can be supported by proposed asset sales, marketing of which is in process.”

Versarien was launched in 2011 and listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2013 when the business was pre-revenue.