LivingSocial Narrows Losses In Q2
Losses at LivingSocial slowed in the second quarter as the company began to rebound from a tumultuous start to the year. The company posted a $31 million net loss last quarter — a 38% decrease from the quarter earlier — as operating expenses and revenue sank slightly over the same period, according to a quarterly filing by Amazon, the company’s lead investor, released Friday morning.
After making across-the-board cuts in November, and more recent layoffs in July, the company seems to be stabilizing. Sara Parker, a spokesman for LivingSocial, told Street Fight that the company was positive in operating EBITDA, an accounting indicator used to evaluate performance, in March, and that preliminary numbers indicate it will again be in June after a dip in April and May. Parker attributes the weaker performance in April and May to customer concerns over a security breach in late April that exposed names, email addresses and passwords for over 50 million users.
LivingSocial has had a tough go of it so far this year. The company, which was valued at $1.5 billion in 2011, rushed to raise $110 million in a down round in February to cover mounting losses, bringing its total funding to an astonishing $918 million. Then, earlier this month, the Washington D.C.-based firm shuttered its Adventures business and subsequently closed offices in both Seattle and New York.
The deals market has struggled in the past 18 months, leaving LivingSocial and Groupon, as well as a sea of smaller players, looking for alternatives and investors rushing toward the exits. Groupon has rebounded since the ouster of its founder and former CEO, Andrew Mason, but the company continues to struggle with the fallout from a difficult international strategy and an e-commerce business which is seeing falling margins.
Steven Jacobs is Street Fight’s deputy editor.
[Ed. Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that LivingSocial posted a $81 million loss in the second quarter.]