Business / Quikr posts 75% rise in revenues at ₹191 crore, cuts down losses

BENGALURU: Online classifieds and services portal Quikr narrowed its losses to ₹230.04 crore in the financial year ended March 2019 from ₹237.43 crore loss a year ago. The Bengaluru-based startup reported a 74% year-on-year increase in revenues for FY19 to ₹191.22 crore, according to documents sourced from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

The startup’s total expenditure stood at ₹436.83 crore in FY19, a 16% year-on-year increase compared to ₹375.95 crore expenses reported last year.

Most of Quikr’s revenue in FY19 came from “marketing and management service fee" generated from its home rental product which stood at ₹85.15 crore in FY19 compared with just ₹7.5 crore in FY18.

Other revenue channels for the startup include paid advertising revenue ( ₹50.1 crore), commissions ( ₹49.54 crore), lead referral fee ( ₹39.2 crore), and revenue generated from on-demand beauty services ( ₹24.48 crore).

Quikr shut down its beauty services product ‘AtHomeDiva’ after it acquired on-demand beauty service provider Salosa in May 2016. The shutdown came shortly after Quirk fired around 600 employees last week, hit by an internal employee scam.

The online classifieds startup has so far raised more than $440 million from investors such as Warburg Pincus, Tiger Global, Norwest Venture Partners, and Omidyar Networks among others. Quikr last raised ₹20 crore in debt funding from Trifecta Capital in July and is currently valued at a little over $1.5 billion.

"For FY18-19, we have witnessed 68% growth in our gross revenue which is consistent with our previous years since we verticalized our business. Our online-to-offline channel strategy built on top of these verticals since then has added 30+ QuikrBazaar outlets in non-metros and metros along with a few additional stores planned in states like Maharashtra, Haryana, and MP for more offline stores sometime in the year 2020. Adding to this, QuikrJobs as a category has been profitable too. The anomaly discovered in some parts of our businesses will have some impact on our FY19-20 revenue," said Quikr spokesperson in a statement.

The on-demand home services segment has seen steady revenue growth and investor interest in the past with startups like UrbanClap and Housejoy emerging as frontrunners even though both brands have faced layoff and a partial shutdown of services.

In May 2019, UrbanClap claimed to have crossed ₹100 crore in revenues in FY19 after raising $50 million in its Series D round in November last year. The startup shut down its wedding services and photography service on October 2019 to focus more on beauty and home services, according to a report in The Economic Times. Housejoy, on the other hand, fired around 40 employees in May last year after it failed to raise funds. It had earlier scaled down services in several geographies.