BharatPe’s FY21 losses have nearly doubled to Rs 1619 cr, company filings show

Fintech unicorn BharatPe’s losses nearly doubled to Rs 1619 crore in FY21 from Rs 912 crore in FY20 even as the revenue from operations jumped to Rs 119 crore in FY21 from Rs 6 crore in FY20, company filings accessed by BT from business intelligence platform Tofler indicated. The company’s expenses on employee engagement have also significantly grown to Rs 75.4 crore in FY21 from Rs 28 crore in a year-ago period.

However, a BharatPe spokesperson told BT that for FY22 the company has $400 million cash flow and will not be raising anymore capital. It added that the monthly cash burn of the company is at $4 million. The fintech firm also said that it aims to achieve a revenue target of $300 million in FY23 and has exited March 2022 with around $100 million in revenue.

BharatPe’s consumer-facing buy now, pay later (BNPL) business, called PostPe, as per the company's statement, achieved $50 million in total payment volume in March 2022. The platform also claims to have onboarded 8 million merchants in FY22 from 5 million merchants in FY21.

“We closed the year (FY22) with a bang! Our all time best month, in an all time best quarter. 15-40 per cent growth across all metrics. Amazed at the brilliant execution by our teams; and more importantly, by our mission of solving the payment and credit needs of Bharat! On another note, we have decided to be more transparent, and I would be sharing quarterly movement on our most important metrics here,” said BharatPe CEO Suhail Sameer in a LinkedIn post.

The fintech firm is currently locked in a controversy after its managing director and co-founder, Ashneer Grover went on a voluntary leave and eventually resigned from his post on March 1 this year following a corporate governance review being ordered by the company's board to probe the allegations of financial irregularities allegedly committed by Grover and his wife Madhuri Jain.

Grover, on his part, has publicly questioned the probe saying that it was not conducted in a transparent manner and has recently demanded suspension of Sameer for his alleged unsolicited behaviour while commenting on a LinkedIn post.