Lightspeed Commerce Inc., a Canadian payment-tech firm that reduced staff by 10 per cent last month, posted a larger-than-expected US$814.8 million loss after writing down the value of firms it acquired before the technology market slumped.

About one-third of the US$748.7 million impairment charge in the fiscal third quarter came from the firm's largest acquisitions — those of Ecwid and NuORDER — which it made in 2021, the Montreal-based company said. 

Analysts had estimated Lightspeed would post a US$73 million net loss for the quarter. 

“Because the shares went down quite a bit, there's just an accounting treatment that brought a net loss,” Chief Executive Officer Jean-Paul Chauvet said in an interview. “That has nothing to do with our cash, nothing to do with our operations.”

Lightspeed maintained its guidance that its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization would break even or turn positive in fiscal year 2024.

Quarterly revenue rose 24 per cent from a year earlier to US$188.7 million. Adjusted Ebitda was a loss of US$5.4 million, narrower than the US$8.5 million loss that analysts were expecting, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Lightspeed is now focusing on the larger firms in the segment of small- and medium-sized business, or SMBs, that it targets, Chauvet said.

“Especially now, in the context of more complex macroeconomics, the reality is going to be the survival of the fittest,” Chauvet said. “In the SMB world, the more you're established, the less future churn.”