Home interiors brand HomeLane claimed that it posted a profit in FY22 but its annual financial statement put a different picture. Forget about profits, the Sequoia-backed company’s losses jumped over 50% in the fiscal year ending March 2022.
While we will come at expense and loss parts at the second half of the story. For now let’s focus on its revenue growth and break-up.
HomeLane provides interior solutions and claims to have over 1,400 design experts who serve more than 20,000 customers. Collection for these services was the sole source of income for the six-year-old firm which surged 54.3% to Rs 426 crore in FY22.
The company also made Rs 5.12 crore from interest of fixed deposits which increased 2.17X in the last fiscal year (FY22).
On the expense side, the cost of procurement of home interior materials and contracts were the largest cost centers which accounted for 56.8% of the overall expenditure. This cost grew 56.6% to Rs 332 crore in FY22.
Employee benefit expenses increased by 10.2% to Rs 119 crore during FY22 from Rs 108 crore in FY21.
With the onboarding of star cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Homealane’s advertisement cost jumped over 3X to Rs 70 crore in the last fiscal year. The company added another Rs 7 crore against information technology which pushed its total expenditure by 53.7% to Rs 584 crore in FY22 from Rs 380 crore in FY21.
Scale and the cost for the company grew at a similar pace during FY22. Consequently, Homelane's losses also jumped by 50% to Rs 153 crore in the last fiscal year. Its ROCE and EBITDA margin stood at -85.88% and -31.79% respectively. On a unit level, the company spent Rs 1.37 to earn a single unit of operating revenue in FY22.
HomeLane directly competes with Livspace which registered a loss of 645 crore against the revenue of Rs 570 crore in the last financial year and pepperfry whose losses were widened to Rs 194 crore.