We are cutting down experiments, capex and M&As to preserve cash: Flipkart's Kalyan Krishnamurthy

Walmart-owned e-commerce company Flipkart is cutting down spends across new experiments, capex, and mergers & acquisitions amid a tightening of the funding environment for technology companies.

"We are doing everything to preserve cash, ramp down experiments, cut down on discretionary capex and M&A spending, invest for the long term," said Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy at the India Internet Day organised by TiE Delhi-NCR.

"In 2022, we are seeing a big reset. From 8-9X revenue multiples (in terms of valuations) in 2018 to 15x in 2021, we are back to the 2018 levels. There have been big corrections in valuations of e-commerce and work-from-home companies. Fintech is one of the worst hit categories," he added.

According to him, this reversal of fortunes was due to the end of cheap money as central banks tighten monetary policy, a softening of the global economy, supply shocks in essential commodities, and we overestimated the digital shift due to Covid.

A slowdown in the funding of growth and late-stage technology companies was the flavour of discussions at the internet conference on September 2. While investors and entrepreneurs conceded that early-stage start-ups do not have a lot to worry about in the near term, they maintained that a path to profitability was the writing on the wall for more mature companies.

Also Read: Slowing in startup funding is healthy, signals return to basics: Sanjeev Aggarwal of Fundamentum

According to data by Tracxn Technologies, the average monthly Series B and Series C rounds for startups, typically called growth-stage rounds, has fallen 25 percent year in the first half of the year.

"People are talking about the funding winter, stock values and how long is this going to last. There are so many questions... The holy grail of any business is how do we cut down on costs and yet not compromise on growth," said MakeMyTrip founder Deep Kalra to kick off the conference.

While India has 105 unicorns (companies valued at or more than a billion dollars) currently, only a quarter of them are profitable.

Moneycontrol reported earlier that only 23 of the first hundred unicorns of India were profit-making enterprises. These startups have raised over $80 billion from investors to date, creating a total market value of more than $300 billion, the data showed.

The data is significant because some unicorns that have listed on stock exchanges last year have confronted an investor backlash for not managing to achieve company-level profitability.