Accel backed Crownit incurred Rs 9.7 Cr loss to earn Rs 5.6 Cr in FY18

Mobile-based marketing and customer rewards app Crownit - has revealed its financial reports for FY18, and the numbers are interesting. The total revenue earned by the company in FY18 saw a 2.3 per cent decrease, from Rs 5.79 crore to Rs 5.65 crore.

However, the operational revenue (service income), reduced from Rs 4.47 crore to Rs 1.84 crore, by 59 per cent. The remaining portion was balanced by other income (interest income), which grew about 3X from Rs 1.31 crore to Rs 3.81 crore.

The consumer group marketing platform achieved a major cut down in costs making it Rs 15.34 crore, 55.6 per cent less from Rs 34.54 crore in FY17. The area in which the cost-cutting was highest was the direct cost of redeeming the Crownit coins (rewards). It saw a 87.2 per cent downfall, from Rs 6.22 crore to Rs 79.52 lakhs.

This clearly explains the magnitude of reduction in service income. When the rewards for the consumers lessened, so did the revenue.

The largest area for expense for the company was employee benefit, which also shrank from Rs 14.4 crore to Rs 8.44 crore (41.4 per cent reduction).

Consequently, the losses of the Sameer Grover led company was controlled by 66.3 per cent, down from Rs 28.75 crore to Rs 9.69 crore.

Throughout FY18 the company raised Rs 14.24 crore (approximately $2 million). Existing investors Helion Ventures and Accel Partners contributed a bridge round of Rs 2.54 crore in three equal installments from December ‘17 to March ‘18. Rest, Rs 11.7 crore was contributed by Mynavi Corporation, a Japanese enterprise.

As per a report by VCCircle, Crownit was expected to raise approximately $3.5 million past April this year, but there have been no share issues till now that go on to show any success in that venture.

The enterprise that offers rewards to customers in exchange for pictures of receipts from above 10,000 partnered merchants, also provides data analysis services to these companies for research purposes.

The segment this Gurugram based company operates in proves to be tricky, seeing that seldom any startup manages to make a mark, except for maybe Magicpin. Magicpin had recently raised around $21 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners US. The company's financials for FY18 is yet to be filed with MCA.

Going further, while the consumer group marketing and rewards providing platforms are having a hard time in the ecosystem, time will tell if Crownit grows for better or for worse.