Tiger Global backed Roposo spent Rs 25.7 to make a rupee in FY17

Roposo (now Roposo - TV by the People) had pivoted from a fashion-focused social network to a horizontal platform for marketers and sellers.

It posted a loss of Rs 30.96 crore in the fiscal year 2016-17 against the revenue of Rs 1.29 crore in the same fiscal.

The latter had increased by 42.1 per cent from Rs 90.98 lakhs in FY16, reveals RoC filings.

The Delhi-based company has recorded a 19.26 per cent downfall in overall expenses to Rs 33.28 crore in FY17 from 41.22 crores in the financial year 2015-16.

This essentially means that Roposo had spent Rs 25.73 to make Re 1 during a 12 months period ending March 2017. On the other hand, it had spent Rs 45.31 to make a rupee in FY16.

Albeit the expenses, Roposo narrowed down the losses by 23.06 per cent in FY17 from Rs 40.24 crore in the previous financial year.

Pivoting in the middle of the last calendar year, the platform now caters to several verticals including food, travel, home décor, beauty services et al. Since August last year, it had launched several theme-based channels across aforementioned categories on its app.

Importantly, the company had also moved out from an affiliate model to a subscription-based plan. It charges Rs 13,500 on a yearly basis to sell inventory on its ‘Bazaar’ channel and claims to have 30,000 paid subscribers.

Roposo claims to have a registered user base of 8 million who collectively post about 60,000 posts on a daily basis. Besides subscription, it also makes revenue through advertising.

Launched in early 2014, Roposo had raked in about $21 million risk capital from Tiger Global and Flipkart’s co-founder Binny Bansal.

Over the past eight months, the company has launched platforms in eight vernacular languages including Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, and Punjabi.

Quick look at online fashion segment

With Myntra and Jabong in its portfolio, online fashion has been largely dominated by Flipkart (about 70 per cent). Rest of the market share is majorly covered by Amazon, leaving other platforms a very small share.

Also read: Why majority of fashion-focused online companies failed to make a mark

The Indian unit of the Jeff Bezos-led company is gradually emerging as a competitor for Flipkart in fashion, whereas specialists in the segment including Voonik, Limeroad, and Roposo have been struggling to find a firm footing in a shopper's wardrobe.

Since Roposo has made a second pivot since its inception, it would be interesting to track its financials in FY18 which it is yet to file with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA).