Online-to-offline lifestyle retailer Chumbak's revenue growth slackens

Chumbak Design Pvt. Ltd, which sells lifestyle products through its online marketplace and offline stores, reported a sharp drop in revenue growth for the year through March 2017 but its losses widened just a tad thanks to a slower rise in costs.

Net sales for 2016-17 rose 20.6% to Rs 41 crore, according to the company's regulatory filings sourced through VCCEdge, the data research platform of VCCircle. This compares with an almost 80% % jump in revenue for 2015-16 to Rs 34 crore. 

The Bengaluru-based company, which sells colourful apparel and accessories, recorded a net loss of Rs 19.9 crore for 2016-17, a tad wider than the loss of Rs 19.4 crore the year before. For 2014-15, however, it had posted a much smaller loss of Rs 7.1 crore.

Total expenditure for the last fiscal year rose 13.7% to Rs 57.4 crore from Rs 50.5 crore while cash and bank balance decreased to Rs 4.2 crore from Rs 6.2 crore. The company’s net worth--the difference between assets and liabilities--fell to Rs 14.2 crore from Rs 31.1 crore.

Messages and email queries to Chumbak co-founder and chief executive Vivek Prabhakar did not evoke a response till the time of publishing this report.

Chumbak was founded in 2009 by Prabhakar and wife Shubhra Chadda. Prabhakar has worked at Sun Microsystems, Motorola, Fabmart and Titan, and Chadda at Nortel Networks and NetApp.

The company started off with souvenirs. Gradually, it diversified across 100 categories, including fashion and travel accessories, bags and wallets, and decor. In late 2015, it forayed into apparel.

Chumbak plans to start selling personal care products, which includes bath and skin-care products, perfumes, cosmetics and toiletries, according to previous filings with the Registrar of Companies. However, it is not clear if it has immediate plans to enter the segment.

The hybrid retailer sells its merchandise on its website as well as at 18 exclusive stores across 11 cities in India, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kochi, and Jaipur. Besides, it has pop-up stores in malls across the country.

In November last year, Chumbak raised Rs 85 crore ($13 million) in a round led by Mumbai-based mid-market private equity firm Gaja Capital. 

Existing investors Matrix Partners and Seedfund also took part in the round that valued the company around Rs 183.35 crore ($28.4 million).

In May last year, the company had raised Rs 8 crore in debt from Mumbai-based non-banking financial company BlackSoil Capital Pvt. Ltd. 

In November 2016, it secured Rs 3 crore from Bengaluru-based investor Narayan Ramachandran, former India head at investment banking firm Morgan Stanley.

In 2014, the company mopped up $5.01 million (Rs 30 crore) in a funding round led by Matrix Partners India and Seedfund, according to VCCEdge.