Re-commerce marketplace Cashify raised $98 million from NewQuest Capital, Prosus and e-commerce giant Amazon during FY23. The funding played a pivotal role to accelerate its scale which crossed Rs 800 crore during the previous fiscal year ending March 2023.
Cashify’s revenue from operations surged 63.9% to Rs 816 crore in FY23 from Rs 498 crore in FY22, according to its consolidated financial statements filed with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).
Cashify lets customers sell and buy old electronic devices, mostly mobile phones and laptops. Apart from buying directly from users, the company works with several offline and online channels and OEMs such as Xiaomi, OnePlus and Samsung for their exchange programs. It also works with marketplaces Amazon and Flipkart to ease the process of buying and selling refurbished phones and laptops.
Revenue Breakdown
FY22
Total ₹ 498 Cr
FY23
Total ₹ 816 Cr
The sale of used mobile phones and other electronic gadgets like speakers, laptops, tablets, gaming consoles, and smartwatches formed 93% of the total operating revenue which increased by 63.9% to Rs 762 crore in FY23 from Rs 465 crore in FY22. The rest of the income comes from the marketplace platform. Check TheKredible to see a detailed revenue breakup.
Having an inventory-led model, the cost of procurement of materials accounted for 77% of the overall expenditure. In the line of scale, this cost rose by 66.4% to Rs 749 crore in FY23 from Rs 450 crore in FY22.
Expense Breakdown
FY22
Total ₹ 603 Cr
FY23
Total ₹ 973 Cr
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Cost of materials
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Employee benefit expense
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Rent
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Advertising promotional expenses
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Logistics cost
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Others
Its employee benefit cost, advertising and promotion cost, logistics, rent, and other operating overheads pushed its total expenditure by 61.4% to Rs 973 crore in FY23 from Rs 603 crore in FY22. Head to TheKredible for a detailed expense breakdown.
Talking about the bottom line, the company’s losses increased 49.5% to Rs 148 crore in FY23 from Rs 99 crore in FY22. Its ROCE and EBITDA margin stood at -41% and -17% respectively. On a unit level, it spent Rs 1.19 to earn a rupee of operating revenue in FY23.
FY22-FY23
FY22 | FY23 | |
---|---|---|
EBITDA Margin | -18% | -17% |
Expense/₹ of Op Revenue | ₹1.21 | ₹1.19 |
Roce | -181% | -41% |
Cashify has raised $130 million across rounds. According to TheKredible, NewQuest Capital is the largest external shareholder with 19.5% followed by Olympus and MIH Ecommerce Holdings. It competes with Greendust and Yaantra among several others. Yaantra was acquired by Amazon rival Flipkart in a $40 million deal in January last year.
The healthy growth for Cashify underscores the potential in the Indian market, and possibly the region for the firm with its business model. We had underlined earlier how the firm seems to have missed a trick by not burnishing its green credentials. Clearly, the decision is based on harsher market realities of value above all else, something that we see all around us when it comes to serious action to mitigate climate change. Cashify has already done well to outlast many competitors, while learning a lot about the market. But Cashify deserves to think bigger all the time, and at some stage, one hopes the firm will be able to make a case and perhaps even get rewarded (with carbon credits etc) for the emissions it saves by extending the life of smartphones and other electronic products. It needs to crack the collection(procurement) side of things to slip into the black, but seems to have found a way to get there finally. Expect FY26 to be the one where it shows profits.