Neobanking startup Open’s revenue surges 7X in FY22, losses cross Rs 167 Cr

Neo-banking platform Open became the 100th unicorn from India after raising a $50 million round led by IIFL in May this year. This came on the back of over 7X growth in scale. However, its losses crossed Rs 167 crore during the last fiscal year.

Open’s revenue from operations surged 7.2X to Rs 40.9 crore during the fiscal year ending March 2022 as compared to Rs 5.7 crore in FY21, according to the company’s annual financial statement with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).

Most of its revenues come from the customers paying for the right to use its software. Collection from this slab shot up over 9X to Rs 33.3 crore in FY22 from Rs 3.65 crore in FY21.

Apart from this, Open provides a platform where customers can collect and make payments through banking channels and charge an amount per transaction as commission. These collections grew 3.7X to Rs 7.56 crore during the year from Rs 2 crore in FY21.

The platform also accrued Rs 15.42 crore via interest and gains on current investments along with other non-operating income, which took its total income to Rs 56.3 crore.

Open helps businesses to manage their finances effectively and  it claims to have powered more than 2.3 million SMEs and processed over $30 billion in annualized transactions, as of May. The company seeks to disburse $1 billion in lending through the new suite of products on the platform by mid-2023.

Moving towards the expense side, employee benefits turned out to be the biggest cost contributing nearly 48% of the overall expenses. This cost surged 2.2X to Rs 107 crore in FY22 from Rs 47.8 crore in FY21. Importantly, this cost also includes expense on employee stock option scheme and employee stock purchase plan of Rs 22.5 crore.

Advertising cum promotional expenses were another major cost during the year which flew 6.9X to Rs 68.8 crore whereas IT costs (including software, server, and payment gateway charges) climbed  3.4X to Rs 15.38 crore in FY22. Open also spent on legal - professional fees and card issue charges of Rs 9.65 crore and Rs 27 lakh during the last fiscal year.

With an over 7X growth in scale, total expenditure of the company soared 2.8X to Rs 224 crore in FY22 as compared to Rs 81.4 crore in FY21. Revenue growth was followed by losses that spiked 2.6X to Rs 167.7 crore in FY22 against Rs 65.6 crore in the preceding fiscal year (FY21).

Cash outflows from operations stood at Rs 158.5 crore with a surge of over 3X during FY22.

The growth in scale helped the company to refine the ratios. EBITDA margin and ROCE improved to -281.90% and -29.54% during the year. On a unit level, the Bengaluru-based company spent Rs 5.48 to earn a rupee in FY22.

Open has raised around $187 million (more than Rs 1,500 crore) to date and is backed by Temasek, Tiger Global and 3one4 Capital. The company recently received RBI’s in-principle approval ​​to operate as a payment aggregator/payment gateway. Its close competitors include Jupiter, Fi and Niyo.