Application programming interface (API) infrastructure platform M2P Fintech (formerly Yap) acquired five companies since the beginning of FY22 and raised $56 million in January at a 4.6X premium as compared to its valuation in November 2021.
M2P Fintech’s valuation crossed $600 million in its Series D round which apparently came on the back of strong growth in its scale during FY22. Its revenue from operations spiked 4.6X to Rs 194 crore during the fiscal year ending March 2022, according to the company’s annual financial statement with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).
M2P Fintech generates revenue from API services, payment infrastructure contracts and card processing services. Collection from these services surged 4.6X to Rs 194 crore in FY22.
The company also made Rs 8.55 crore in non-operating income which pushed total revenue to Rs 202.6 crore in FY22.
Its APIs enable businesses and platforms to offer their own branded financial services through partnerships with fintech companies. According to the company’s website, fintechs powered by its API serve over 35 million customers in 20 markets having an active loan portfolio (core lending suite) of $9 billion.
Apart from India, M2P has a market presence in Nepal, UAE, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Bahrain and Egypt. The company made over 98% of its revenue from domestic contracts and rest from foreign contracts, however, the company doesn’t provide revenue break-ups from individual countries.
On the expense front, technology, card processing and co-branding expenses constituted 68.7% of the firm’s total expenditure. These costs overshot its revenue growth, going up 5.9X to Rs 167.4 crore in FY22 from Rs 28.6 crore in FY21.
Employee benefit expense was the second largest cost element which surged 3.4X to Rs 58 crore in FY22 from Rs 17.2 crore in the preceding fiscal. Importantly, this cost also includes expense on employee stock option scheme and employee stock purchase plan of Rs 1.75 crore.
Spends on legal-professional fees and rent stood at Rs 6.76 crore and Rs 2.36 crore which spiked 2.3X and 4.6X respectively. M2P Fintech also incurred advertising cum promotional expenses of Rs 1.3 crore which pushed overall expenses 4.8X to Rs 243.5 crore in FY22 as compared to Rs 51 crore in FY21.
A sharp increase in M2P Fintech’s expenditure adversely affected its bottom line and its losses ballooned 6.2X to Rs 41 crore during the year from Rs 6.6 crore in FY21. Cash outflows from operating activities shot up 11X to Rs 63.4 crore in FY22 against Rs 5.67 crore in the preceding fiscal year.
When it comes to ratios, its EBITDA margin and ROCE worsened by 484 and 93 BPS to -17.93% and -7.30% respectively. On a unit level, M2P Fintech spent Rs 1.26 to earn a rupee in FY22.
The Chennai-based company competes with the likes of Setu, Signzy and Decentro in the API infrastructure business. The company has emerged as a posterboy in its space and the company’s scale is likely to grow even stronger on the back of its core lending suite which weeds out the need of 10-12 different service providers for a bank or NBFC.
