Total DealShare spend tripled to INR 306.4 Cr in FY21 from INR 57.4 Cr in FY20. The increase in expenses was primarily driven by a significant increase in expenses for the purchase of shares in trading. Revenue from social commerce startup operations grew over 300% to INR 236.8 Cr in FY21.
DealShare
Social trading unicorn DealShare reported a 134% increase in its net loss to INR 67 Cr in fiscal year 2020-21 FY21 from INR 30 Cr in FY20 due to a more than triple increase in its total expenses.
Read Also : Encourage Cardholders To Tokenise Cards: RBI
DealShare’s operating income grew by 312.3% to INR 236.8 Cr in FY21 from INR 57.4 Cr in the previous fiscal year.
Unlike in FY20, when the startup’s revenue from the sale of services was zero, it reported an income of INR 73.8 Lakh in FY21.
However, its total expenses increased to INR 306.4 Cr in FY21 from INR 88.5 Cr in FY20, led by a significant increase in expenses for buying shares in trading.
While trading share purchase expenses increased by approximately 267% YoY to INR 242.2 Cr in FY21, finance costs also increased to INR 2.24 Cr from INR 44.7 Lakh in FY20 .
The startup’s employee benefit expenses more than doubled to INR 29.6 Cr in FY21 from INR 12 Cr in the previous fiscal year, while other expenses including discount charges, freight costs and logistics, advertising and promotion expenses increased by more than 132% to INR 41.8 Cr.
DealShare, founded in 2018 by Vineet Rao, Sourjyendu Medda, Sankar Bora and Rajat Shikhar, enables first-time Internet users to shop online. The platform targets the mass market population in Tier 2, 3 cities who have a monthly household income of less than INR 50,000.
The startup entered the unicorn club in January this year after raising $165Mn in its Series E round. It raised a further $45Mn as part of its Series E funding round from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority ADIA in February, bringing its total valuation to $1.7 billion.
DealShare was the fourth unicorn of 2022, while 15 startups have entered the unicorn club in 2022 so far. Earlier this week, SaaS startup LeadSquared entered the unicorn club after raising $153 million from WestBridge in a Series C round.
Meanwhile, the social commerce industry in India is expected to grow exponentially every year. According to a Research and Markets report, the gross merchandise value GMV of social commerce in the country will increase to $143.6 billion by 2028 from $8.3 billion in 2022, registering a compound annual growth rate CAGR of 62.4% between 2022 and 2028.
