Traction for Tyro

Moneyswitch Ltd, trading as Tyro payments, may finally be achieving some real traction in the eftpos/credit card acquiring market.

After years of burning cash, Tyro is rounding up capital once again.

While accumulated losses stood at $19 million at launch time in April 2007, those had stretched to $26 million by September 2009.

Tyro can at least point to growth in sales (including a few key customer wins) and lower losses.

In the year to June 2009 Tyro reported revenue was $ 6.3 million, up from $1.5 million in 2008. The operating loss was $5.1 million, slightly down from $5.8 million in 2000.

Optimism and conviction, as well as the extra capital, are somehow sustaining the vision for an eight-year-old business that so far is earning peanuts in the huge and steadily growing payments market.

So the potential remains large, as does the opportunity created by the stale delivery of services by the payments oligopoly; in this case, the four majors and First Data.

Sales gains made by Tyro over the last year or two may justify the further funding. Clients can be attracted to look to new suppliers, and there are now plenty of case studies of adopters of the Tyro payments solution to make additional sales more likely than before.