ANS Commerce’s scale soars 5X in last two fiscals

E-commerce services provider, ANS Commerce was acquired by Flipkart at around Rs 250 crore last year. The acquisition had come on the back of five-fold growth in its scale in the last two fiscals.

The operating revenue of the five-year-old company grew from Rs 20 crore in FY20 to Rs 112 crore in FY22, according to its annual financial statements with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).

ANS Commerce is a full-stack e-commerce enabler with services such as store tech, performance marketing, marketplace management, e-commerce warehousing, and fulfillment. Income from these services contributed 60% of the collection which grew 2.1X year-on-year to Rs 67.30 crore in FY22 from Rs 31.60 crore in FY21.

During the acquisition, Flipkart said that ANS Commerce will continue to operate as an independent platform under its existing leadership team. It currently claims to work with over 100 brands and helps them sell on their own website and 15 marketplaces. Collections from the sale of products enabled increased 52% to Rs 44.7 crore during FY22.

On the expense side, the cost of procuring items from the brands is the largest cost center for the company, forming 38.1% of the overall expenditure. This cost surged 59.4% to Rs 46.47 crore in the fiscal year ending March 2022.

Advertising and promotion followed the cost of products which jumped 2.2X to Rs 40.25 crore in FY22 from Rs 18.33 crore in FY21. The employee benefit cost and secondary packing expenses shot up 2.1X and 3.3X respectively to Rs 18.68 crore and Rs 2.31 crore in the last fiscal year which pushed its total cost by 87.7% to Rs 122 crore in FY22 from Rs 65 crore in FY21.

Outpacing its revenue growth, ANS Commerce’s losses rose around 4.1X  to Rs 12.4 crore in FY22 from Rs 3 crore in FY21. On a unit level, the firm spent Rs 1.09 to earn a single unit of operating revenue.

Founded by Amit Monga, Vibhor Sahare, Sushant Puri, and Nakul Singh, the Gurugram-based startup had raised $2.2 million in its pre-Series A round led by Gokul Rajaram and Venture Catalysts in October 2021. It’s one of the few companies to post Rs 100 crore plus revenue with the least funding.

While filling an obvious gap in the market for firms that wish to have their own e-commerce play, even while being present on online platforms, ANS Commerce has done well to aggregate a full repertoire of partners to deliver a complete e-commerce experience for its clients. As long as firms, small or large seek to have their own online pitch too, ANS will thrive, especially on the back of the strong backing it has now. Its ability to add in the latest features also ensures a regular update on its offering, not to mention the possibilities of customizing it for different clients. One has to wonder however if the Flipkart ownership doesn’t change attitudes towards the firm, as firms worry about proprietary data protection. We should know soon enough, as the market offers enough growth opportunities to take a slowdown out of the equation in the normal course of things.