CollegeDekho’s revenue shoots up 32% to Rs 216 Cr in FY24

CollegeDekho, a higher education services and college admission platform, reported a 32% year-on-year revenue growth for the fiscal year ending March 2024. However, despite this increase, the company posted a net loss of Rs 129 crore, remaining unchanged from FY23.

CollegeDekho’s revenue from operations increased to Rs 216 crore in FY24 from Rs 163 crore in FY23, its consolidated financial statements sourced from the Registrar of Companies (RoC) show.

Founded in 2015, CollegeDekho is a marketplace for college admissions and higher education services. Its offerings include student counseling and lead generation, university partnerships, education loans, test preparation, and study abroad services.

The company has not disclosed the full revenue breakdown. It earns primarily from the commission on admissions, marketing services, promotion and advertising, online coaching, and other tech solutions. The firm also added Rs 6 crore in interest and investment gains, which brought its overall revenue to Rs 222 crore in FY24.

CollegeDekho allocated 45% of its total expenses to employee benefits in FY24, amounting to Rs 156 crore, a 5% decline from the previous year. This includes Rs 8 crore in ESOP costs, which are non-cash in nature.

The second-largest expense for the company was advertising and promotion, which rose by 35% to Rs 97 crore in FY24, reflecting increased efforts to enhance brand visibility and customer acquisition.

CollegeDekho's outsourcing and subcontracting costs grew by 33% in FY23. In FY24, legal, rent, provision for doubtful debts, travel, and other expenses contributed to a 16% rise in the company's total expenditure, which increased to Rs 349 crore from Rs 302 crore in FY23.

In the end, the company’s losses remained flat at Rs 129 crore in FY24. Its ROCE and EBITDA margin stood at -78% and -44.6%, respectively. On a unit level, CollegDekho spent Rs 1.62 to earn a rupee of operating revenue. Its current assets were recorded at Rs 211 crore with cash and bank balances of Rs 3 crore at the end of FY24.

CollegeDekho has secured over $60 million in total funding, including a $9 million investment last year from its existing backers. According to the startup data intelligence platform TheKredible, CarDekho is the largest external stakeholder followed by Winter Capital.

In a highly competitive market, such high losses donot augur well for CollegeDekho. Besides large players, the firm has to contend with multiple startups slicing away profitable niches like foreign admissions etc with innovative offerings.  There is a serious need for an ambitious player like College Dekho to build a stronger differentiator in the market by creating solid IPs associated with itself. Whether these are high-quality reports on college infrastructure, evaluation studies or even evaluation of placement data, the market needs a clutter buster with credibility. Rankings have been gamed, data is suspect, and claims are outlandish, to say the least. In all this, the boom in private sector colleges and the inflation in fees is more an indicator of state failure to provide the basics, than anything else. We believe understanding of the extent of this failure and demands to course correct is only strengthening, and could lead to some very disruptive actions for the sector by the next general elections. Service providers like CollegeDekho need to take a long-term call one here they want to be positioned when the pressure for change peaks. Being on the wrong side of the change could severely impact their long-term viability.