EasyProperty makes £11m loss but CEO hangs on
Online estate agency easyProperty has reported a pre-tax operating loss of more than £11.3m ($14m) for the year ending September 2016, alongside a gross turnover of £875,000 and a gross profit of just above £492,200. CEO Rob Ellice said the last financial year was a "period of further development for the business" and insisted he had the full support of the board and investors. Ellice also said easyProperty would require more funding in the "foreseeable future".
The figures give a fascinating insight into the funding required to set up an online operation.

A strategic report attached to the firm’s figures, written by chief executive Rob Ellice, says that during the year to September 30 2016 the group raised £16m through the issue of shares.

In the year in question easyProperty had a turnover of just under £875,000 and a gross profit of just above £492,200 but the pre-tax operating loss was over £11.3m.

The figures show its total comprehensive loss for the year was £10.94m; a year earlier, between September 9 2014 and September 30 2015, its total comprehensive loss was some £6.7m.

In his statement accompanying the figures, Ellice says the year to the end of September 2016 was “a period of further development for the business” but at “a lower rate of growth than anticipated.”

However, he believed easyProperty’s technology to be more sophisticated than its competitors, and stressed that “at this stage of their lifecycle it is generating start-up losses as it uses working capital to develop the business.”

He goes on to say that: “It is expected that the group will require additional funding in the foreceeable future, which is deemed to be 12 months from signing the financial statements” - which were signed on December 15 last year.

EasyProperty operates in the residential sales and lettings arena, and in commercial property.

Last September - a fortnight before the end of the year referenced by the figures - easyProperty said it had exchanged contracts on a £35m property portfolio, which at the time was thought to be the largest deal carried out by an online estate agency.

The off-market transaction was for a mixed-use portfolio including 208 properties across London and Essex – 114 of which were residential.