PolicyBazaar’s parent swings to a loss in FY18 despite 42 pc increase in revenue
Gurugram-based PolicyBazaar's parent company ETechAces Marketing and Consulting swung to a loss of Rs 59 crore for FY18 as against a profit of Rs 7.31 crore in the previous fiscal.
Recent unicorn PolicyBazaar’s parent company ETechAces Marketing and Consulting swung to a consolidated loss of Rs 59.18 crore in FY18. The Gurugram-based company had reported a consolidated profit of Rs 7.31 crore last financial year.
The total income on a consolidated level of the company soared by almost 42 percent to Rs 360.33 crore. Further, the total revenue of the group in FY17 stood at Rs 208 crore.
Why the losses?
The company witnessed a proportionate increase of almost 42 percent in total expenses in FY18, reaching Rs 393.87 crore from Rs 226 crore. Earlier in July, it said that it looks to take revenues to Rs 1,500 crores by FY19.
ETechAces Marketing and Consulting also had a tax liability of Rs 25.64 crores this year. This payment was one of the major reasons for the group's slip into losses. In the previous year, it had a tax rebate of Rs 25.25 crores, last year.
The company's advertising and promotion expenses also increased this financial year to Rs 142.21 crores, from Rs 74.8 crores in FY 17, and employee benefits rose to Rs 178.19 crores, from Rs 110.25 crores in FY17.
In spite of this, in July, online insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar stated that it was looking to create 2,500 new jobs this year. The new vacancies were expected to be made mainly in the customer support function, where it is looking to add 2,200 roles to advise and help consumers in understanding various insurance products.
Further, in the last week of June, ETechAces, which runs the insurance marketplace PolicyBazaar and lending marketplace PaisaBazaar, raised close to $238 million from Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, catapulting the company into a Unicorn.
In September, the company also pumped $50 million internal funding into its latest healthcare and telemedicine venture Docprime.