Udaan parent’s FY20 losses balloon, revenue sees 19X jump

Bengaluru -headquartered business-to-business ecommerce marketplace, Udaan, widened its losses by 108% to Rs 923.4 crore for the financial year ending March 31, 2020, on a consolidated basis. 

Owned and operated by Hiveloop Technology, the company registered Rs 225.6 crore in revenue from operations for the financial year 2019-20, a 19-time jump from Rs 11.83 crore for the financial year 2018-19. 

The consolidated statement captures the earnings from subsidiaries of Hiveloop Technology, including Hiveloop Capital that provides credit and short-term loans to ecommerce businesses and Newloop Apps Private Limited.

Trustroot Internet Private Limited, the parent entity of Hiveloop Technology and related parties is headquartered in Singapore. 

Of this, Rs 206.8 crore came from revenue from contracts with customers for the marketplace business, while Rs 11.78 crore was accounted for by the credit business, according to regulatory filings.  

“Revenue from contracts with customers is recognised when the Group satisfies a performance obligation by transferring a promised good or service to the customer, which is when the customer obtains control of the good or service. A performance obligation may be satisfied at a point in time or over time,” said the company in its earnings report.

The company, which raised $280 million (Rs 2,045 crore) in its latest funding round in January from new and returning investors, saw its marketplace revenues grow to Rs 186.8 crore for the financial year from zero in the previous fiscal. The company’s revenues from advertising also grew over 18-times year-on-year to Rs 14.38 crore. The total employee benefit expense also increased 97% year-on-year to Rs 338 crore.

Founded in 2016 by former Flipkart employees Amod Malviya, Sujeet Kumar and Vaibhav Gupta, Udaan claims to have a network of 25,000 sellers connecting more than 3 million users in 900 cities. The company was among the fastest to reach a startup unicorn status with a valuation of over $1 billion in 2018 when it raised $225 million in Series C round from DST Global and Lightspeed.