Despite the notoriously high-priced adverts on its Stories and Discover features, photo messaging service Snapchat only brought in $3.1m (£2m) in revenues in 2014, leaked financial reports have revealed.

The companys financial details were obtained by news site Gawker, which revealed that the firm lost $128.5m over the course of the year, although fortunately it has over $300m in cash on hand, which will bankroll the company for the foreseeable future until it becomes profitable.

The revelation of the companys finances are unlikely to shock any industry insiders. The photo messaging service is currently valued at around $20bn, and like many tech startups is showing considerable growth despite being in the red. Some firms even go public before becoming profitable.

While Snapchats revenues from last year were quite meager compared to its size, experts are predicting that advertising spend on the app will accelerate to around $50m this year, following the service reaching 100m daily users.

Its worth noting that Snapchat only began advertising in October 2014, so all of its income was generated in the final two months covered by the statements that have been leaked. Also interesting is how little Snapchat spends on marketing – only around $600,000 – which for an app that reaches so many users, most of whom are in the highly sought after youth market, is highly impressive.