Quikr FY16 loss widens to Rs 534cr

Bengaluru:

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Quikr

’s losses widened to Rs 534 crore in 2015-16 from Rs 446 crore in the year before, showed data from the Registrar of Companies (RoC). The Bengaluru-based unicorn seems to have controlled its expenditure even as the company grew its sales by 1.6 times and its marketing spend grew multifold.

Quikr’s total revenue rose by 44% to Rs 95 crore from Rs 53 crore, after it reported Rs 53 crore from other income. Its standalone revenue jumped to Rs 41 crore in 2016 from Rs 25 crore in the financial year ended March 2015. Quikr has not specified what comes under other income. It has invested Rs 391 crore in bonds, debentures and mutual funds.

Quikr has been strengthening its verticals like real estate, jobs and on-demand beauty services with acquisitions and investments. It has been on an acquisition spree having bought seven companies, including real estate aggregators

Commonfloor

and Grabhouse, hiring platform Hiree, and beauty aggregator Stayglad, this calendar year.

Unlike some other Indian unicorns that have seen mutual funds and investment banks marking down their valuation, Quikr’s valuation was raised to nearly $1.5 billion by one of its investors, Kinnevik, in its third quarterly report, an additional value of $170 million from the preceding quarter.

Founded by Pranay Chulet and Jiby Thomas in 2008, Quikr has so far raised $346 million from investors, including Warburg Pincus, Tiger Global Management, Matrix Partners India, Norwest Venture Partners, Omidyar Network and others. Quikr is used by over 30 million unique users a month and is present in 1,000 cities in India. It employs around 1,500 people.