This article is the subject of a legal complaint from David Richards

The chief executive of Cirata has compared the difficulties of turning the troubled software company around to “the laborious task of Sisyphus” as sales dropped and losses widened last year.

Cirata, a data software specialist formerly known as WANdisco, was hit by a sales and accounting scandal last year and Stephen Kelly, the former boss of Sage, was drafted in to lead an overhaul.

On Thursday, Kelly said the company’s recovery was taking longer than expected and that it was in the midst of a “comprehensive rebuild from the ground up” with problems ranging from weak governance, a business plan that “failed to deliver” and a “corporate culture at odds with the company’s commercial reality”.

David Richards, the former chief executive, and Erik Miller, the former finance chief, have been asked to repay £647,000 they received based on 2022 results that proved to be false, but the company said that “to date, no monies have been returned”.

Revenue for 2023 declined to $6.7 million from $9.7 million in 2022, while pre-tax losses grew from $29.6 million to $36.5 million. Shares in the company closed down 9p, or 15 per cent, at 51p.

WANdisco was set up in 2005 by Richards and supports companies that create large amounts of data. Its shares were suspended for four months last year and an investigation by FRP Advisory, the consultancy, found that about $15 million of recorded revenue and $115 million of sales bookings linked to a senior employee had been illegitimate. The company completed an emergency $30 million fundraising last July.

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus is condemned by the gods to repeatedly roll a boulder up a hill for eternity.

Kelly added in Thursday’s annual results: “Reactive surprises, rear-guard activities and unexpected challenges occupied late nights and weekends. The situation demanded continuous firefighting. We were experiencing a seemingly endless series of ‘whack-a-mole’ challenges.”

He said that “several elements of a scalable growth company seemed to be lacking”. Cirata’s sales team lacked basic structure and a 12-month pipeline provided in March 2023 turned out to be vastly overestimated, meaning the company was left with a “scenario akin to starting from scratch”, while “essential elements of governance, training and certification” were missing.

“The working culture mainly characterised by a four-day week, unlimited vacation and working from home failed to align with the operational reality of a loss-making business,” Kelly wrote.

Of the $30 million in emergency funding, $8 million was owed to advisers who worked on “crisis management and fundraising efforts”, which Kelly said “compounded our problems”. Cirata said it had asked advisers to “share the responsibility and reduce their fees” and that some had done so.

He said the company’s sales pipeline was improving and noted that clients including General Motors had been won, and repeat business from NatWest. Other customers include Allianz, Apple, BMW, Continental, Huawei, Manulife and Tesco.

Kelly said: “We have navigated through the most challenging period in our company’s history. Our collective efforts have yielded good progress. However, there is still much work ahead of us and the speed of the recovery is slower than we anticipated.”