Rubique FY18 revenues up 60%, expenses jump 48%

Mumbai based Rubique Technologies India Pvt Ltd, which runs an online marketplace for financial products, grew its operating revenues 60% to Rs 25.2 crore for the financial year 2017-2018 from Rs 15.5 crore in the previous year.

Founded about four years ago by Manavjeet Singh, Rubique enables small and medium enterprises (SME) and individuals to access loans and credit cards from third party service providers through its platform. It charges a commission for each loan or credit card that it facilitates. In 2017-2018, loans accounted for Rs 12.42 crore of the company’s operating revenues while credit cards accounted for Rs 12.38 crore, up 35% and 111% respectively from the previous year.

The company’s losses, however, increased 34% to Rs 23.18 core from Rs 17.25 crore in the previous financial year, according to filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Total expenses jumped 48% to Rs 48.4 crore from Rs 32.8 crore a year earlier chiefly on account of higher staff costs. The company provided for Rs 19 crore towards what it terms a ‘business associate’ payout. 

“Rubique has been aggressively expanding," Singh told TechCircle. "Technology being our core strength, we focused on solidifying hiring in technology in order to build robust product offerings that are integrated with disruptive technologies including artificial intelligence and machine learning. To sustain growth and efforts to increase market share, we have invested in marketing and digital efforts to on-board new business partners across locations. These efforts have fueled our growth and stellar performance."

Formerly known as Bestdealfinance.com Pvt Ltd, Rubique claims to have facilitated SME and individual loans worth over Rs 3,522 crore and more than 150,000 credit cards since inception. It is currently operational in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Jaipur. The third party lenders on its platform include banks such as HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank and NBFCs such as Aditya Birla Housing Finance, PNB Housing Finance and Indiabulls Financial Services. It claims to have on-boarded more than 100 financial institutions as partners.

According to media reports, the company raised an undisclosed sum from Japan’s Recruit Group and Russian venture capital management company Emery Capital in a fresh round of funding in April this year. In September last year, Singh had told TechCircle that the company was in advanced stages to raise $20 million (around Rs 128 crore) in its Series B round of funding from Chinese and UAE venture capital firms.

Last year the company raised $3 million (Rs 19.4 crore) in a bridge round from existing investor Kalaari Capital and Udayan Goyal, managing partner at Apis Partners.