BrowserStack India’s profit grows 57% in FY22, revenue crosses Rs 400 Cr

Homegrown SaaS (software-as-a-service) company BrowserStack has grown at a rapid clip which is apparent from both its topline and bottomline — which expanded over two folds in the previous two fiscal years.

BrowserStack’s Indian entity (Browserstack Software Private Limited) registered 59% growth in operating scale to Rs 418.4 crore during the fiscal year ending March 2022 in contrast to Rs 263.3 crore in FY21, according to its standalone annual financial statement with the RoC.

Besides its operating revenue, the company also booked a non-operating income of Rs 3.71 crore which includes interest on fixed deposits, current investments, and net gain on foreign currency fluctuations.

BrowserStack claims to be one of the leading software testing platforms powering over two million tests every day across 17 global data centers. Apart from Mumbai, Browserstack has offices in Dublin and New York. The company is primarily engaged in providing development, design, support, and implementation of computer software to develop the various products services to BrowserStack Limited (the holding company, Ireland) which constitutes a single business segment.

The Indian entity generated all of its revenue from rendering services to the holding company. Importantly, this revenue would be shown as expenditure in the holding company’s financials. This may not be the true picture of its financial health as we don’t have access to the holding company's financial statements.

Moving to the expense side, employee benefit expenses expectedly accounted for over 83% of the total expenses. This cost grew 68.6% to Rs 267.8 crore in FY22 from Rs 158.8 crore in FY21. As per media reports, the firm has more than 1,000 employees.

Spending on software and subscription increased 26.4% to Rs 11.3 crore during FY22 whereas its hosting charges went up 37.8% to Rs 2.26 crore. BrowserStack also incurred Rs 22.64 crore and Rs 4.48 crore on rent and legal-professional fees respectively in the last fiscal year.

In total, the company’s overall expenditure soared over 61% to Rs 321.4 crore in FY22 as compared to Rs 199.4 crore in FY21.

Following the footprints of scale, its profit also flourished 57.2% to Rs 75.3 crore in FY22 against Rs 47.9 crore in FY21.

Moreover, BrowserStack’s reserves escalated by around 70% to Rs 183.6 crore during FY22 and its cash flows from operating activities also turned positive to Rs 67.5 crore.

As per Fintrackr’s analysis, BrowserStack’s EBITDA margin and ROCE stood at 25.94% and 52.39% at the end of FY22. On a unit level, it spent Re 0.77 to earn a rupee of operating revenue during the same period.

During FY22 (June 2021), the Ritesh Arora-led company raised $200 million in an investment led by Bond Capital at a valuation of $4 billion. Soon after the fundraise, it also constituted one of the largest ESOP buyback programs for its employees.

BrowserStack has earned its valuation the hard way, by delivering profitability and growth in spades. It should be fascinating to see how the firm maintains the momentum on an ever higher base. Too many SaaS firms have tried new segments which have not quite delivered the margins of the original business. With all the dry powder it could need, the Browserstack journey will be tracked very avidly indeed.