Sachin Bansal’s Navi Technologies posts Rs 71 crore profit in FY21, revenue up 143% YoY

Picture Courtesy: Chandra R Srikanth

Sachin Bansal-led Navi Technologies turned profitable in the financial year 2021, posting a consolidated profit of Rs 71 crore, according to the startup’s regulatory filings. The company had posted a loss of Rs 8 crore in the previous financial year.

Founded by Flipkart founder Bansal and his college friend Ankit Agarwal in 2018, the fintech’s businesses includes lending, general insurance, mutual funds, and microfinance. It is also awaiting the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) nod for a universal banking license to build a bank from the ground up, utilising the technology stack built in-house.

Navi also saw a jump of close to 143 percent in revenues as the business of the company expanded its reach and the adoption of financial services through online modes grew under the pandemic. The revenue came in at Rs 137 crore versus Rs 56 crore a year ago.

The growth in the business is visible in the company’s rise in total incomes by 251 percent, up from Rs 221 crore in FY20 to Rs 780 crore in FY21. Expenditures have also spiked by 217 percent from Rs 212 crore to Rs 673 crore year-on-year (YoY).

Navi’s consolidated businesses include IT and advisory services, non-banking financial services including lending and micro-finance, general insurance and mutual funds.

According to the regulatory filing, the company has also received the stockbroking and investment advisory license from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

In an exclusive interview with Moneycontrol in August 2021, Bansal had said that the acceleration of technology adoption due to the pandemic has made him upbeat about Navi’s prospects.

“I’m very excited about that because a similar transformation can happen in financial services. We are seeing a lot of digital adoption in lending and insurance,” Bansal had said.

Breaking down the lending business, Bansal had said that the size of the company’s microfinance loan book stood at Rs 1,500 crore and non-microfinance loan book at Rs 600 crore. Overall, the startup was disbursing loans worth Rs 350 crore a month, Bansal added.

“We are now comparing ourselves with banks and NBFCs. That is why we describe ourselves as a financial services company that happens to be good in technology. I don’t like the word fintech, lot of fintechs don’t have (lend from) their own books,” Bansal had said.