Losses at Irish-founded media firm Storyful have reached over €15m
The News Corp-owned company continues to lose money but is hiring more staff.
THE IRISH ARM of media company Storyful has plunged further into the red and is sitting on a loss of more than €15 million.
New accounts filed with the Company Registration Office cover an 18-month period from December 31 2015 to June 30 2017.
The filings show that by the end of June last year, the News Corp-owned company was sitting on accumulated losses of €15.1 million. This is compared to the collective €6 million loss it had recorded by the end of 2015.
The Irish operation of Storyful has increased its staff numbers since 2015. On average, it employed 100 people by the end of 2017 – up from an average of 54 in 2015 – in roles across its editorial, sales and marketing, technology and development and administration units.
Average salaries for directors were down from roughly €420,530 at the end of 2015 to €351,750 in 2017.
As well as operating an office in Dublin, Storyful also has locations in London, New York, Hong Kong and Sydney.
Storyful did not respond to a request for comment at time of publication.
‘Adolescence’
Storyful was co-founded in 2010 by former RTÉ News journalist Mark Little to vet news sources and content online for other media organisations.
It was acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in December 2013 for €18 million.
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Chief executive Sharb Farjami told Fora in February that the company was going through a difficult post-acquisition “adolescence”.
It has tried to diversify its business with new products that help brands and organisations monitor how people are talking about them online.
News Corp has also invested more money in the company since the acquisition, most recently a €7.2 million cash injection in late 2017.
Little left Storyful over a year after the acquisition and had a brief stint at Twitter. He’s now heading up a new venture, NevaLabs, a news app that will use AI to personalise news feeds for users.
