Sugar’s income spikes 89% in FY23 with improved bottom line

Sugar Cosmetics saw over 89% growth in its scale during the fiscal year ending March 2023 while the Elevation Capital-backed firm’s bottom line remained unchanged in the same period as compared to FY22, leading to much improved margins.

Sugar’s revenue from operations surged to Rs 420 crore in FY23 from Rs 222 crore in FY22, its consolidated financial statements sourced from the Registrar of Companies show.

Financial FY23

Check detailed 3 year financial comparison on thekredible.com

Sugar is an omnichannel beauty brand with a presence across 40,000 retail stores and third party e-commerce marketplaces including Amazon, Nykaa, Flipkart and Myntra. The sale of cosmetics and beauty products was the sole source of revenue for the firm in FY23.

Similar to several other D2C beauty brands, advertising cum promotion remained a major cost for Sugar, accounting for 32% of the overall expenditure. It’s worth noting the company has also roped in film actors Ranveer Singh and Tamannah Bhatia as brand ambassadors. Overall, this cost saw a 67% spike to Rs 162 crore in FY23.

Other key spending was on employee benefits and procurement, which grew 74.3% and 81%, respectively. Rent, legal, professional, outsourced support services and other overheads led Sugar’s overall expenditure to Rs 505 crore in FY23 as compared to Rs 300 crore in the previous fiscal.

Expenses Breakdown

FY22

Total ₹ 300 Cr

FY23

Total ₹ 505 Cr

• Cost of material consumed

• Employee benefit expense

• Advertising promotional expenses

• Rent

• Legal professional charges

• Outsourced support service

• Freight charges

• Others

To check complete Expense Breakdown visit thekredible.comView full data

See TheKredible for the detailed expense breakup.

Along with an exponential growth in scale, Sugar also kept its losses in check as it remained flat at Rs 76 crore. Its ROCE and EBITDA margin improved to -29% and -14%, respectively. On a unit level, it spent Rs 1.20 to earn a rupee in FY23.

FY22-FY23

	FY22	FY23
EBITDA Margin	-30%	-14%
Expense/₹ of Op Revenue	₹1.35	₹1.20
ROCE	-78%	-29%

Sugar has raised over $80 million to date including its $50 million Series D round led by Asia fund of L Catterton. According to the data intelligence platform, TheKredible A91 partner is the largest external stakeholder with 20.11% followed by India Quotient and RB Investments. Its co-founders Kaushik Mukherjee and Vineeta Singh cumulatively command 24.76% stake in the decade-old company.

The tight control on costs certainly indicates a possible push for an IPO in the near future, while the window remains open. Following the successful MamaEarth IPO, Sugar clearly has a case too, provided it wipes out the red from its balance sheet. The question is, can it sustain the impressive growth rate without hiking expenses? We should know soon enough, we suspect.