Dailyhunt's Parent Company Has Reported a Loss of Rs 2,500 Cr and a Revenue of Rs 965 Cr for the FY22

Dailyhunt Latest Startup News

VerSe Innovation, which owns vernacular news aggregator Dailyhunt and short video entertainment app Josh, continues to lose money, with its losses more than tripling to Rs 2,500 crore in FY22.

Meanwhile, Dailyhunt operating revenue grew by 45% to Rs 965 cr during the same period, according to its annual financial statements with the Registrar of Companies (RoC). The group's entire revenue comes from online advertising and subscription services through its mobile apps and website. A total sum of Rs 19 crore was also made by the company from bank deposits and liabilities which it wrote off during the fiscal year. 

The statements didn't provide any revenue breakdown across Josh and DailyHunt. But a Dailyhunt spokesperson told Entrackr that "100% of VerSe's revenue is from advertising on Dailyhunt, and that ad revenue grew 1.5x year-over-year.

VerSe raised $450 million during FY22, at a valuation of $3 billion, and invested heavily in marketing and creating an ecosystem to enable a creator economy for its app. The company raised an additional $805 million at a $5 billion valuation in April (FY23).

Business promotion expenses were the largest cost, more than doubling to Rs 2,693 crore in FY22 from Rs 1,281 crore in FY21. This cost is 2.8X of the company's operating revenue in FY22.

Employee benefits expense was the second-largest cost for VerSe Innovation, growing by 3.8X to Rs 731 crore in FY22.  It also included the cost of Rs 375 crore on the employee stock option (ESOP) that was settled in cash.

Legal and professional expenses, as well as commissions paid to agents, increased by 4X and 2.7X respectively, to Rs 151 cr & Rs 47 cr in the last year. As a result, the company's total cost grew by 2.3 times to Rs 3,714 cr in FY22 from Rs 1,580 cr in year 2021.

With this increase in expenses, DailyHunt's parent company's losses rose by 3.17 times to Rs 2,563 cr in FY2022. Its cash outflows from operating activities also increased by 2.52 times to Rs 2,402 cr, while the company's unit economics also took a hit and spent Rs 3.85 to earn a single rupee in FY2022. "In the last 7 months Dailyhunt has grown to 8% EBITDA positive," they added.

Dailyhunt competes with Inshorts in the news aggregation and hyper-local video business, while its short video app Josh competes with MX TakaTak, ShareChat's Moj, YouTube Shorts and Instagram, among others.

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Josh, which launched in late 2020, has been losing money in marketing the app and also attracting top creators. 

However, VerSe's spokesperson clarified that Josh's monetization began in August and is expected to reach $100 million in annual recurring revenue during FY23. With Daily Hunt already close to Rs 1,000 crore in revenue, the company is well-placed to monetize its inventory as and when the market demands. 

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LeadSquared's Revenue Hits Rs 200 Cr in FY22, Losses Jump 5.4X

LeadSquared Startup News

LeadSquared, a software as service (SaaS) platform, has become a unicorn after it raised $153 million through a Series C financing round with WestBridge Capital and existing investors in June 2022. The company's admission into the $1 billion or more valuation club came on the heels of a two-fold increase in its size in FY22.

LeadSquared has continued to grow, and its revenue from operations increased to 193.5 crores for FY22, up from the previous figure of 99.5 million in FY21, according to its financial statements that were filed at the Registrar of Companies (RoC).

LeadSquared offers complete marketing, sales, as well as automation for onboarding to its clients. According to Fintrackr's analysis, the sale of these solutions is the sole source of operating income for the business in FY22. The company also earned Rs 7.1 million in FY22, mostly by selling its financial assets.

In terms of cost, Employee benefits are the most significant expense for the business accounting for approximately half of the total expenses and grew 2.3X to approximately Rs 142.2 crores in FY22.

As a SaaS business, the expense of technical services is significant, soaring 2.4X to around Rs 58 crore in FY22. Promotion and advertising costs and business support costs also increased by 2.6X in both 2.4X to approximately 9.76 crores and the equivalent of Rs 16.21 crore, respectively, during the previous fiscal year.

The company also spent an additional 1321 rupees 13.21 crore for professional and legal fees, which increased its total costs to 2.3X to 262.3 crores in FY22.

With all the major cost centres expanding faster than revenue growth in FY22, the company's losses also increased 5.4X to around 62 crores in the final fiscal year, up from 11.3 crores in FY 21. 11.3 million in FY21.

On a per-unit basis, LeadSquared spent Rs 1.36 for a single rupee. With a dramatic rise in its costs and its EBITDA ROI and margin, this business decreased to -28.58 percent and -42.73 percent for the fiscal year that ended March 2022.

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• Fast Food Chain Wow! Momo Raises $16 Million in Series D

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LeadSquared said it has more than 2000 customers in its most recent fundraising. Apart from Bengaluru, the company has offices throughout New Jersey, the Philippines, South Africa, Australia, and Indonesia. In examining the company's revenue and profits, it can be seen that it has a 38X the revenue multiplier for its value, an amount that is sure to rise with growth in the coming years too. Nilesh Patel, CEO of LeadSquared, has recently stated that the company plans to earn the amount of $200 million (Rs 1600 crore) in revenues over the coming three to four years.

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Fast Food Chain Wow! Momo Raises $16 Million in Series D

Wow! Momo Latest Startup Funding News

Wow! Momo is a quick service restaurant chain founded in August 2008 by a group of entrepreneurs led by Kunal Bahl. They are expanded to over 19 cities and have 425 outlets in India. This startup basically provides everything related to momos only like momo-filled burgers and its desserts also. The company has raised close to $8 million in Series A round of funding led by an individual investor. This Series D round of funding is led by V’oceanInvestment and Oaksand India.

Wow! Momo is headquartered in Kolkata, India with operations in Mumbai, Chennai and more 16 cities. Wow! Momos aims to grow their fast food joint to be an IPO and compete with McDonald’s and Dominos like fast food restaurant chains. The company is rapidly expanding in the country. Mohit Bhargava, an IIT Bombay alumnus, co-founded and incubated the company before crossing the Rs1 crore revenue mark in just three months. 

This startup Wow! Momo has now raised a Series D round of funding. The current funding round is worth Rs 125 crore or $16 million. This most recent round of funding for Wow! Momo brings their total funding to $41 million. Wow! Momo is the first quick service restaurant chain in India to adopt a service-oriented design, which was introduced by Apple.

This startup has raised $16 million in a round led by Tree Line Investment Management. This latest round will take the company to a total of $70 million. In October, Wow! Momo Foods launched its newest range of products at the 35th China Food Expo. The company plans to use the amount to expand its outlets.

Wow! Momo is the first and only QSR serving the Chinese market. It has been established since 2008 and is based in Mumbai. Their food is a blend of East, East and East. Wow! Momo specializes in Chinese cuisine. It is mainly a QSR chain which prepares foods such as fried rice, pork buns, noodles, and wonton. This QSR chain is found in India and Nepal too. It has three QSR brands, Wow! Momo and Wow! China and Wow! Chicken. It is one of the leading QSR chains in India and Nepal.

On 26th March 2016, the startup announced that it has raised $16 million (Rs 100 crore) led by venture capital firm Accel and was seeking to raise another $10.6 million (Rs 70 crore) in the Series D round of funding. As per Fintrackr estimates, Wow! Momo has raised fresh investment at a valuation of $270 million or Rs 2,130 crore post allotment. As per Fintrackr's estimates, Wow! Momo's valuation grew more than 60% in the past year as it was valued at $165-170 million in its Series C round.

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Wrapping Up

Wow! Momo raised ₹44 crore from Lighthouse funds in 2017, in 2018 they raised 300 crore (US$45 million) from Fabindia, In 2019 130 crore (US$23 million) from Tiger Global Management. So currently, this startup’s financial valuation has crossed 860 crore (US$120 million). Wow! Momo has not filed its financial statements for the last fiscal year but its revenue from operations shrank 36% to Rs 106 in FY21. Meanwhile, the company’s losses ballooned 17X to Rs 59.3 crore in the fiscal year marred with the pandemic.

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GOAT Brand Labs Secured $50 Million in Series A1 Round

GOAT Brand Labs Startup Funding News

GOAT Brand Labs, a D2C brand aggregator has recently secured a funding of $50 million in their Series A1 round. New investors 9Unicorns, Winter Capital, Oxyzo, Vivriti Capital, Venture Catalysts, and other existing investors

OfBusiness' lending arm -  Oxyzo became a unicorn in March 2018. Entrackr sources say that Oxyzo has lent more than 20 startups. GOAT has raised from its first institutional round a funding of $36 million from Tiger Global Management and Flipkart Ventures. Its current investors include Better Capital, and Nordstar as well as a number of angels like Sujeet Kumar and Ranjan Pai.

Being a marketplace platform, GOATS acquires D2C (direct-to-consumer) brands and helps them scale with its expertise and market understanding.

After receiving profitable brands, the company claims its portfolio has experienced a nearly 85% increase in scale. Since its inception, the company has made 15 acquisitions, including Abhishti and Doggie Dabbas, as well as Frangipani, Hipkoo The Label Life, and Voylla. The company will be in discussions with 12 other brands in the coming weeks.

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GOAT was founded by Rishi Vasudev and Rameswar Misra and focused on brands in fashion and beauty as well as home and kitchen space. Vasudev, Myntra, Jabong, and Flipkart Fashion were previously in charge of Flipkart's Fashion for over five years. Rameshwar was part of Voonik’s management team that merged with Bangladesh's ShopUp in February 2020.

GOAT is a D2C company optimization tool that works in the same way as Perch, Thrasio and Branded in America. It helps companies with expansion and marketing, growth hacking and process optimization.

GOAT is competing with two unicorns in the space: GlobalBees, Mensa Brands, and 10club. Evenflow, Powerhouse91 and Powerhouse91. Mensa reports that it raised $300 million equity and debt, while GlobalBees led by Nitin Agarwal & Supam Maheshwari has raised more than $260 millions in two funding rounds.

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Lenskart Subsidiary Styled Venture Neso Brands Raises $100 Mn

Lenskart Subsidiary Neso Brands News

Neso Brands, a subsidiary of the omnichannel brand Lenskart has raised more than $100 million during one of the biggest seed rounds of any company. Neso Brands' investors include KKR, Softbank, Alpha Wave Global and Temasek. 

The company based in Singapore said it would invest in eyewear brands that appeal to consumers and expand them through synergies with Lenskart Group.

In addition to the funding, Neso Brands has also announced the appointment of Bjorn Bergstrom as the company's new CEO. Before becoming Neso's CEO, Bergstrom served as chief growth officer and interim chief technology and product officer at Sweden-based fashion brand NA-KD.

"By investing in the most promising new brands in the [eyewear] industry and leveraging centralized resources across technology, manufacturing and distribution, Neso Brands will be uniquely positioned to scale the eyewear brands of the future," Bergstrom added. 

Lenskart creator Peyush Bansal has said, "It is our firm conviction that the brands of eyewear that we have today won't be the ones that will be in the near future. Neso is our plan to work with global founders to create brand names for the future of eyewear.

Lenskart had already raised $125 million over two tranches of its series I round back in April. Based on Fintrackr's estimates, the Peyush Bansal-led firm is worth $4.32 billion, and it is hoping to close the round at $5 billion.

A few days ago, ET revealed that Lenskart had registered the D2C company with Neso Brands and that it was seeking funding from the outside to fund the new subsidiary.

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Lenskart currently serves more than 10 million users and is present in 235 cities throughout India and Singapore. The company's revenue was the sum of 905.3 crores in FY21 as opposed to the figure of Rs 900 crore in FY20 as per the company's annual financial statements. In addition, the company achieved an increase in its annual profits by more than 4.6X to 28.92 crore from 6.32 million in FY20.

Neso Brands' $100 million round is the biggest seed round ever for an Indian-origin company. Established in 2022, Neso Brands is the latest addition to India's list of brands roll-up startups following the successes of two unicorns within the industry, Mensa Brands and GlobalBees. Neso Brands will only look for brands that sell eyewear and expand them to create a Thrasio-like venture.

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CityMall Raises $75 Mn in Series C Round Led by Norwest

A social-commerce platform called CityMall has received Rs 574 crore or $75 million, led by Norwest Venture Partners and participated by other investors, both existing and new investors. This is the third round of funding for the firm based in Gurugram in the past year.

CityMall has granted the allotment of one equity share and 11771 preferential shares at the price of 458,716 to raise $574 crore (or $75m), the regulatory reports indicate. Norwest Capital and Citius Fund are the two biggest participants in the round, with an investment of Rs 142.52 crore and the sum of Rs 112.52 crore, respectively. Jungle Venture, Elevation Capital, AM Holding, General Catalysts, Waterbridge Ventures, and Accel have a total of Rs 90 crore, 60 crores, and the sum of Rs 56.2 crore as well as the sum of Rs 30 crore and 22.5 crores, respectively.

Entrackr was exclusive information regarding this particular round back in October. CityMall raised $11 million in Series A in March and $22.5 million Series B by June. As per Financial Tracker's estimations, the company is valued at 320 million dollars in its Series C round.

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Additionally, the company has also expanded its ESOP option pool from 1381 to 2912 options, and it is now worth 135 crores, equivalent to $17.5 million.

CityMall offers the categories of lifestyle, grocery, and other categories by establishing an extensive network of community-based resellers in tier II as well as III towns. The company claims to have 200K customers and 20,000 resellers in eight cities within Haryana. Haryana.

CityMall has earned money at the beginning of the year during the year-end of March 2021. The operating revenue was the sum of Rs 14.95 crore for FY21. However, it suffered a loss of the equivalent of 10.4 crores over the same time.

CityMall's rival that is closed, DealShare, recently added to the Series E funding round with 45 million dollars. The Tiger Global-backed business was the second unicorn to emerge from the world of social commerce, following Meesho. CityMall is also in competition against Farmio by Meesho and a couple of others.

Also read: SharkTank's Ashneer Grover Demands Rs.4000 Crore to Leave His Company BharatPe

The Angad Kikla and Naisheel Vardhan-led company joined a few startups which have raised three capital rounds over the past twelve months. On Monday, the B2B animal protein market Captain Fresh announced its $50 million Series C round. The Bengaluru-based business's previous two rounds took place in July and December this year.

Get all the latest startup news and upcoming IPO news on Entrackr.

SharkTank's Ashneer Grover Demands Rs.4000 Crore to Leave His Company BharatPe

Shark Tank Shark Tank's Indian host Ashneer Grover landed in controversy in the last month after an audiotape of him where he's accused of threatening and hurling abuse at the Kotak Mahindra Bank employee, was released. Ashneer has denied all allegations and said the company he works for will be BharatPe in exchange for investors giving him the sum of Rs4,000 crore.

After the release of the audiotape in the last one month ago, Ashneer declared it to be fake audio recorded by a fraudster seeking to steal money." The statement that was made in a tweet that was later removed by Ashneer. Now, legal actions are being taken by Kotak Mahindra Bank against Ashneer for “inappropriate language” used against their employees.

In a recent conversation with Money Control, Ashneer has stated that he will quit his employer only after an individual investor purchases out his 9.5 percent stake in the company.

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Ashneer stated, I am the MD and I run the company. If the board decides that I'm not needed to be the MD, and somebody else should be the CEO of the business, then please place my Rs 4,000 crore on the market and get the keys off my hands. If you're looking to purchase me, you would like to purchase me at the fair market value you think it is, right? According to me, a fair value would be about $6 billion.

After the alleged audio making rounds on the internet, Ashneer is on a voluntary leave from his duties on BharatPe until March-end. Similarly, last week, Ashneer’s wife - Madhuri Grover - also went on a voluntary leave for a vacation.

About Ashneer Grover

Ashneer, an IIM alumni, worked as an executive vice president at Kotak Mahindra Bank, after which Ashneer was hired by American Express. Later, Ashneer went on to co-found both Grofers and BharatPe.

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About BharatPe

BharatPe is an Indian fintech firm that caters to small-sized merchants and owners of kirana stores in India. It offers a wide range of fintech solutions, including interoperable QR codes to facilitate UPI transactions, Bharat Swipe for card acceptance, as well as small business financing. BharatPe’s revenue for fiscal 2021 jumps over six times to Rs 700 crore. BharatPe’s valuation was $3 billion last year when it raised $370 million from Tiger Global, Coatue and others. BharatPe’s net worth today is around $6 billion.

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AgroStar Secured $70 Million in its Series D Financing Round

 

AgroStar Startup Funding News

The omnichannel agricultural market for advisory services and trade AgroStar has secured $70 million in its Series D financing round led by Evolvence, Schroders Capital, Hero Enterprise, and CDC.

The new round came after 33 months for AgroStar. Bertelsmann India had led a $27 million Series C round within the Pune-based company in March of 2019. The new money will be used to expand business and product offerings and hire and enhance multichannel strategies, stated the company in the press release.

It was launched in 2013 as a missed-call knowledge program for agriculturalists. AgroStar has evolved into an all-stack platform for farmers and offers farm advisory services and agri inputs using a combination of offline and online channels. AgroStar has more than 1,000 offline touchpoints in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, as well as other regions.

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AgroStar plans to install at least 5,000 touchpoints like this over the coming years. According to its website, its Android-only application has more than 5 million downloads, where farmers share their knowledge and can purchase authentic agricultural inputs. The company's offerings have been limited to content and commerce up to the present time, but it's expected to start lending shortly.

Although the company has yet to announce financial results for FY21, its operating earnings jumped by 80% to 153.69 million in FY20, which was just 85.56 crore for FY19. In terms of revenues, the losses increased by 78% to 93.81 million in FY20, up from the 52.82 million in its previous budget period (FY19).

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It is among the largest rounds of funding for Agritech startups in India. The month of October was when Patna, along with Gurugram-based DeHaat, were able to secure 115 million in the Series D round, which was the largest amount ever raised by an Indian agricultural tech startup in one time.

Tiger Global, which Ninjacart backs, also received a sum of $90m during its series C round. However, Waycool has launched an additional round and is expected to raise more existing and new investors. Entrackr reported exclusive news of this on the 13th of October. AgroStar is competing with Unnati, Gramophone, DeHaat and other companies. Unnati also has raised the sum of $8.5 million from Incofin Investment Management, NabVentures and Orios.

Zepto on Its Way to Raise $250 Million

Zepto Startup Funding News

Zepto, a 10-minute delivery service for groceries, Zepto has attracted a lot of attention from both investors. While customers are impressed by its speedy delivery service, huge American tech investors are optimistic about the company's prospects for the future.

Zepto is a Mumbai-based company that has plans to raise over $250 million in a fresh round, as per three sources who are aware of the deal.

One anonymous person familiar with the details of the deal told us that Zepto had already committed about $125 million, half of the round size is in conversation to raise another $125 million from existing and new investors.

Entrackr has complete information on 11 November that Zepto is seeking to raise over 100 million dollars in a new capital round, with a valuation in the range of 500 million.

According to the sources, the talks are past the early stage, as the conditions of the agreement are being worked out. With the addition of funds, the value is expected to rise. "The company will be valued at about $1 billion (post-money) after this round," according to a person who also asked to remain anonymous.

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Entrackr couldn't identify the names of investors who could be part of the round. Y Combinator, Glade Brook Capital, Nexus, Global Founders Capital are its current supporters. Zepto recently raised $60 million with a value of $250 million. The queries addressed at Zepto or Y Combinator didn't elicit immediate responses.

Zepto will become one of the fastest startups to reach unicorn status if the deal is approved. The marketplace roll-up system Mensa Brands recently became a unicorn within six months from its beginning. Professional network platform Apna also achieved the feat within 21 months.

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Zepto allows online grocery orders and can deliver the groceries within 10 minutes to some locations in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Delhi (NCR). According to the company's website, the service will soon be available in Kolkata along with Pune.

Licious becomes India's first unicorn company in the D2C segment

Latest Startup Funding News

Direct-to-consumer seafood and meat brand Licious became the first Indian unicorn in the D2C segment when the brand raised $52 million under the guidance of IIFL's Late Stage Tech Fund. It is also the 29th company that has achieved the status of a unicorn in 2021 .

As of June this year, Bengaluru's firm was able to raise $192 million in the Series F round of funding that was led by Temasek and Multiples Private Equity. Brunei Investment Agency and existing investors 3one4 Capital, Bertelsmann India Investments, Vertex Growth Fund as well as Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India were also part of the round.

"Even though the funding for the D2C sector has grown significantly, FMCG is still not considered the most attractive category," said Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura who co-founded Licious.

"The fresh meats and seafood sector is still largely underserved and unorganised that holds a vast opportunity of $40 billion," they said.

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In the spring of this time last year Licious was able to provide ESOPs to over 1,000 employees , which included its blue-collar employees. Then, it announced the purchase of a buyback amounting to 30,000 in the month of August.

Licious was the 29th company to reach unicorn status by 2021 on its own. The company was founded in the month of April. Vedantu Professional, a networking platform designed for people working in the blue collar and gray Apna and the esports platform Mobile Premier League had joined the club following some of the other companies like Zetwerk, Grofers, Eruditus, CoinDCX, upGrad, MindTickle and BharatPe had raised new rounds with a valuation of unicorns in August.

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