Recently-turned unicorn, digital payment portal Slice has reported revenue from operations of ₹35.35 crore during FY21, which has grown by more than 18% from ₹29.88 crore in FY20, according to regulatory filings studied by VCCircle.
Slice, operated by GaragePreneurs Internet Pvt Ltd, facilitates loans for its customers in order to enable them to buy products and services online from designated merchant portals or e-wallets.
The company attributes slower than anticipated growth in business to the economic instability caused due to the spread of coronavirus and the second wave of covid-19 that started towards the end of the financial year.
The company’s net losses have widened close to five times from ₹1.87 crore in FY20 to ₹8.9 crore in FY21.
The largest expense of the company was the employee benefit expense that grew by more than a fourth from ₹19.5 crore in FY20 to ₹25 crore in FY21.
While the company managed to garner a positive operating cash flow of ₹4.6 crore during FY20, the operating cash flows were at a negative of ₹2.2 crore during FY21.
The queries sent to the company did not garner a response till press time.
The company turned into a unicorn, start-ups that are valued at more than $1 billion, in November last year when it raised $220 million as part of its Series B round of funding led by Tiger Global Management and Insights Partners.
The company had also raised over $20 million from existing investors Gunosy, Blume Ventures and others in June 2021 at almost half the valuation (about $520 million).
Slice was the eleventh fintech in India to turn unicorn in 2021 following the likes of online brokerages, Groww and Upstox; cryptocurrency exchanges, Coinswitch and CoinDCX; as well as insurtech players, Digit and Acko among others, which saw their valuations rise above the $1 billion mark.
The company plans to grow its existing lines of business and enhance its non-banking financial company (NBFC) along with scaling up the loan book.
Slice allows users to pay bills, manage expenses and unlock rewards. It is focussed on the new age millennial and Gen Z segment, with an average age of 27, that have largely been rejected credit cards by large banks, due to inadequate credit scoring around this demographic.