India's first and only proptech unicorn, NoBroker, has set its sights on its next two targets—profitability and a potential initial public offering.
"Covid slowed our growth, but now we are back 200% plus of yearly growth, as far as FY23 and FY24 are concerned. The focus is now on how we can reduce expenses, increase revenue and move towards profitability. So, the aim is to get there over the next 18-24 months," Amit Kumar Agarwal, chief executive officer and co-founder of NoBroker, told BQ Prime.
The Bengaluru-based company was founded in 2013 and is backed by marquee investors, such as General Atlantic Service Co. and Tiger Global Management LLC. It has raised about $215 million till date. Google LLC also invested in the company as part of an extended Series E round in March this year, at a post-money valuation of about $1.06 billion.
In the next two years, NoBroker aims to be Ebitda-level profitable, Agarwal said. "In the first month, the profit objective would be sub-Rs 10 crore and then the aim would be to keep on increasing that number."
For context, NoBroker's revenue nearly tripled in FY21 to Rs 166.6 crore from Rs 63.4 crore in the previous year. However, losses more than doubled to Rs 189.6 crore from Rs 79.2 crore, according to data sourced from Tofler. The company has not filed its FY22 or FY23 results with the Registrar of Companies yet.
"Let the exact numbers be published. They will be published very soon, the audit is done and so, you will know the exact numbers, but broadly what I can tell you is that every year we grow revenue at least by 100%," Agarwal said, without providing exact figures.
NoBroker's core offering is its real estate services, which enable a buyer or tenant to directly connect with a property owner. It also offers a premium package, which allows a property to have top slot on the platform, among other features, and which is charged at a flat fee of Rs 2,000. This is the company's primary revenue stream.
It also offers packers and movers as well as painting and cleaning services, which is their second biggest source of revenue. Its third largest source of revenue is financial services—facilitating home loans, insurance, bridging loan payments. "About 50% would be the real estate services, 25-30% would be the packers-movers and home services and the remaining would be financial services," the CEO said.
NoBroker also operates NoBrokerHood, which is a society management application, which helps residents secure gated communities and pay monthly bills, among other things. It competes with ApnaComplex and MyGate in the space.
"Google was extremely interested in this because they saw the massive growth that we are witnessing in this segment. We are now a part of more than 15,000 gated societies, which corresponds to more than 30-35 lakh flats, so the Google investment was primarily as to how NoBrokerHood and Google can work cohesively to enlarge Google's tech ecosystem," Agarwal explained.
In March, NoBroker's Chief Business Officer Saurabh Garg had told BQ Prime that Google's $5 million investment is "more of a technology and product-led strategic investment".
"One of the key areas where we'll leverage this partnership with Google will be to build unique solutions that help simplify the lives of the residents of NoBrokerHood societies," he had said.
Also Read: Google Invests $5 Million In NoBroker
About three to five years from today is when NoBroker will be looking for an IPO, Agarwal said. "A public listing is on our mind. We are right now only in six cities in India, so the objective in the next two to four years is to expand to more cities and also achieve profitability."
Amid the current funding winter and the pressure from investors across startups to vie for profitability instead of scaling, Agrawal said that the Indian online real estate industry "has been pretty tough".
"In the past 10 years, you would have noticed there are many players which have come and right now, we are the only player which has touched the unicorn status. Our approach has always been to be frugal. The capital we raised in 2021, a majority of that money is still in the bank and the communication from us to the investors is that we have to achieve profitability," he said.
Agarwal said that of the 'roti kapda makaan' (food, clothing, shelter) trinity, there have been plenty of unicorns and even decacorns in the 'roti' and 'kapda' segments. "Many people ask us why there isn't a decacorn yet in 'makaan'. I hope that NoBroker will be able to achieve that status one day, but this industry has been difficult," Agarwal said.
This funding winter is a very good opportunity for NoBroker to achieve profitability, he said. "What's the point of doing business if you aren't profitable?"
Given the cash available, Agarwal said he is "always on the lookout for anything interesting, which can either basically give us a tech advantage or anything which will help us scale faster."
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