Technology entrepreneur Colm Lyon has pumped a further €2.5 million into his digital payments company, Fire Financial Services.
The cash injection brings to about €19 million the total of equity invested in the business, the overwhelming bulk of it provided by Mr Lyon, who along with his wife earned an estimated €90 million from the sale of Realex Payments in 2015.
Documents filed at the Companies Registration Office (CRO) show Mr Lyon's Isle of Man company, Burren Tech Holdings, injected the €2.5 million last month. This comes on top of €3 million he pumped into Fire last year at the outset of the pandemic, and another €3 million he invested the previous year to help tide the UK-focused business through Brexit.
The most recent accounts for the group, filed this year but referring to the year ended April 2020, show the Dublin company made a loss of almost €1.7 million, bring total losses to date to €12.6 million. It generated revenues over the year of €778,000, with a further £170,000 of sales attributed to a separate UK operating entity.
Fire, which supplies technology to help businesses make payments to suppliers and to be paid by customers, was originally a part of Realex, before Mr Lyon sold it to UK group Global Payments, crystallising a fortune for him and his family. He retained it after the Realex disposal, however, and has supported it financially ever since. The company employs about 30 staff.
Mr Lyon is also a prominent investor on the start-up scene, and he has invested in a venture capital fund operated by Frontline Ventures.
