What3words narrows losses to £31.5m

Navigation software company What3words has shrunk its losses by nearly £12m according to its latest financial results.

What3words cited fair value adjustment of convertible loan notes for the decrease in post-tax losses, which fell from £43.3m in 2021 to £31.5m in 2022.

The London-based company’s loan notes now stand at £17m, compared to £64m the year before.

In its full-year results, filed on Companies House, What3words said: “The company continues to invest in research and development activities, including the development of new product concepts and integrations for commercial partners and consumer users.”

“Areas of focus in the year have included voice recognition systems and research into further expanding the languages in which what3words is available, with four new languages launched during the year and others under development.”

Net assets for What3words jumped in 2022 from £7m up to £23.8m. Its assets are mostly made up of £20m in cash and cash equivalents together with term deposits of £22.3m.

Last July the business closed £5m in funding via a crowdfunding campaign. However, the filing shows in total it raised £10.4m in “new finance”.

UKTN has asked What3words for clarification on the additional financing.

Headquartered in London, the company has divided the world into 3m by 3m squares. Each square has been assigned a group of three words. For example, UKTN‘s headquarters is located at “wakes.soak.month”.

The software is used by the likes of Jaguar Land Rover, which introduced it to its vehicles last year. What3words has previously been criticised for use in emergency services, with researchers discovering similar words less than 1km apart. What3words has said these examples are rare.