How Fampay's Rs 200 Cr bet on fintech for teenagers fell flat

Narratives are considered as important as the business plan for startups. And fintech startup Fampay sold its narrative very well. During the funding boom of 2021, it raised $38 million in what’s been one of the largest series A funding rounds.  The firm’s pitch-to target the teens below 18 years of age found ready takers among venture funds, including Elevation Capital, Peak XV (formerly Sequoia Capital), General Catalyst.

How things will pan out for a startup that’s high on narrative but low on core business fundamentals is anyone’s guess. 

An abrupt pivot

From a peak of 10 million users in 2022, Fampay’s troubles stem from a single event – when IDFC Bank pulled the rug out from under it in February 2023 as its payments partner.

This forced account holders to exhaust their balance within a short deadline. It was all downhill from there, as not only did Fampay lose its not-so-loyal users acquired at a high cost, but also struggled to recover from the blow. 

This is not the first time and won’t be the last time teenagers surprise those who thought they have figured them out. Fampay, however, is still struggling to come to terms with the losses it suffered. 

Two years after the mammoth fundraise, Fampay  pivoted to become a UPI-focused app (TPAP like PhonePe and Paytm) in March 2023. The pivot was much needed for the survival of the firm which burnt over Rs 200 crore on the abandoned biz. The Bengaluru-based firm lost Rs 120 crore alone in FY23 with a single digit (in crore) revenue figure.

Numbers unmask the dud

Fampay finally published its annual financial statement for FY23 with the RoC after a year-long delay.

The five-year-old fintech firm reported Rs 7.7 crore in revenue. Income from commissions and partnerships accounted for 50% of the total operating revenue, which stood at Rs 3.8 crore in FY23. Meanwhile, payment facilitation brought in Rs 1.3 crore, whereas subscription fees added another Rs 2.8 crore to the company’s coffers.

The Peak XV-backed firm’s employee benefits surged 2.95X to Rs 65 crore in FY23. This cost is more or less going to be much smaller in the following fiscal as the firm laid off some of its staff at all levels in April. 

Moving on, Fampay’s marketing spends jumped 2.7X to Rs 41 crore in FY23. The burn on legal, subscription, technology, traveling, and other overheads took the company’s overall cost to Rs 137 crore in the fiscal year ending March 2023 from Rs 51 crore in FY22.

Importantly, the company extended an unsecured loan of Rs 55 crore to Pehe Limited to acquire Tri O Tech Solution Private Limited ( a wholly owned subsidiary of Pehe) with a PPI license, at a 6% interest rate for one year. However, after a year of non-payment, the timeline was extended, with the interest rate increased to 7.6%. 

With a marginal revenue and a baggage of mounting expenditures, Fampay’s losses surged 2.8X to Rs 120 crore in FY23 from Rs 43 crore in FY22. Its ROCE and EBITDA margin worsened to -67.4% and -700%, respectively. On a unit level, it spent Rs 17.79 to earn a rupee in FY23.

Fampay has raised $48 million to date including its $38 million led by Elevation Capital in 2021. According to the data intelligence platform TheKredible, Peak XV, Elevation Capital, and Venture Highway are the notable investors in the company.

Post pivot, Fampay entered the top 10 list of UPI-based payments apps in November last year. As per data published by NPCI, Fampay registered more than 50 million transactions through UPI in July 2024. It surpassed other apps such as BHIM, WhatsApp, MobiKwik and Flipkart UPI.

Do or die, or just sell?

A selloff, rather than survival, seems to be the plausible route Fampay is headed for, assuming that suitors are available for it. Having burnt so much on its original premise, even as the firm seems to have done a decent job of cracking the UPI payments code, it might be too little, too late. 

One would have to assume that the final throw of the dice for this firm is to do well enough on the UPI pivot, and show enough momentum for a suitor to consider it a worthwhile acquisition. Like many firms in the space, Fampay would have had a much better chance if the government/RBI had finally relented on allowing UPI providers some leeway on charging fees for their services, but until that division hangs in the air, the company might just hang up its boots in the business.