Cash-strapped Dunzo's losses ballooned to Rs 1,802 crore in FY23, a 288 percent increase from the previous year, when it incurred Rs 464 crore in losses, on an almost four times jump in expenses.
The company’s total expenses zoomed to Rs 2,054 crore in FY23, a roughly 4X increase from FY22, when it spent Rs 532 crore, largely led by a jump in advertising spends. Dunzo spent Rs 310 crore on ads in FY23, or almost a crore each day of the year, a sharp jump from Rs 64 crore that it spent in the entire FY22.
Dunzo marketed its services during the Indian Premier League which resulted in higher expenses but translated to only a marginal increase in revenues.
Dunzo’s revenues grew from Rs 54 crore in FY22 to a mere Rs 227 crore. While the revenues increased 319 percent YoY, it came off of a low base, according to filings sourced via TheKredible.
Dunzo was also on a hiring spree in FY23. Its employee benefit expenses climbed to Rs 338 crore in the fiscal, 144 percent higher than Rs 138 crore that it spent on its staffers in FY22. That could however come down in the current fiscal.
Report card so far
FY23 was when Dunzo fared better than it has been performing now. Since July, the company has delayed salaries to employees, fired hundreds of employees and even given up its office space – all just to manage its cash flows.
While it is trying to reduce expenses, it is also slapped with several legal notices from vendors which means the going has not been easy for Dunzo which has seen several top executives leave, including two of its co-founders.
All this at a time when it is in the midst of a fundraise. Dunzo has been lining up $25-30 million in capital to meet operating expenses, as reported earlier. The money could however come in at a much lower valuation.
Dunzo has so far raised close to $500 million since 2015 from Reliance, Google, Lightrock, Lightbox, Blume Ventures and several others. Reliance is the largest shareholder with a 25.8 percent stake in the company, and Google was the second-largest with around 19 percent ownership in Dunzo, according to Tracxn, a private markets data provider.
Competitive landscape
Dunzo competes with Swiggy's Instamart, Zepto, BigBasket and Blinkit. Zomato-owned Blinkit which saw its revenue from operations zoom 207 percent to Rs 724 crore in FY23 from Rs 236 crore in FY22. Gurugram-based Blinkit’s net loss also widened slightly from Rs 1,021 crore in FY22 to Rs 1,190 crore in FY23.
Zepto saw its revenue from operations jump from Rs 141 crore in FY22 to Rs 2,024 crore in FY23. Its losses, however, widened 3X from Rs 390 crore in FY22 to Rs 1,272 crore in FY23.
Tata-owned BigBasket despite growing a mere 5 percent. Innovative Retail, the B2C arm of BigBasket, saw its revenue from operations growing from Rs 7,096 crore in FY22 to Rs 7,434 crore in FY23. Its losses jumped 89 percent from Rs 813 crore in FY22 to Rs 1,535 crore in FY23.
Swiggy is yet to file their FY23 financials.
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