SoftBank-Backed Whatfix’s Loss Surges 1.3X To INR 249 Cr In FY22, Sales Jump To INR 158 Cr

SoftBank-backed SaaS startup Whatfix reported a 1.3X rise in its loss to INR 249 Cr in the financial year ending March 31, 2022 from INR 190 Cr in the financial year 2020-21 (FY21) as the rise in expenditure outpaced the increase in revenue.

The Bengaluru-based startup’s total revenue jumped 60% to INR 178.2 Cr from INR 111.5 Cr in FY21. Revenue from operations rose 1.6X to INR 158 Cr during the year from INR 97 Cr in FY21. 

The jump in revenue for Whatfix comes at a time when more and more companies are moving online and relying on SaaS companies to streamline their processes. 

Whatfix earns revenue by selling subscriptions and professional services to other businesses. It offers solutions for onboarding new customers, effective training and better support to users through contextual content display at the time of need. The startup claims to offer its solutions to several Fortune 500 companies. 

Whatfix earns a majority of its revenue from the US. The startup generated revenue of INR 119.6 Cr from the US in FY22. While it earned INR 30.3 Cr from Europe, the Asia Pacific region contributed revenue of INR 6.6 Cr. The Middle East and Africa region helped the startup earn INR 1.2 Cr of revenue in FY22. 

However, Whatfix’s total expenses jumped 196% to INR 891 Cr during the year from INR 300.7 Cr in FY21. Finance cost was the biggest contributor to the total expenses, rising 6.6X to INR 457 Cr from INR 68.4 Cr in FY21

Employee benefit expenses surged 79% to INR 196 Cr in FY22 from INR 109 Cr in FY21. 

Employee benefit expenses comprise employee salaries, PF contribution, gratuity, and other employee benefits. 

It must be noted that in July last year, Whatfix announced that it bought back ESOPs worth $4.3 Mn (INR 32 Cr) from its employees.

Whatfix spent INR 196.7 Cr on advertising and promotional activities in FY22, a 2X jump from INR 98.2 Cr in FY21. 

Founded in 2013 by Khadim Batti and Vara Kumar, Whatfix has raised funding of nearly $140 Mn till date. The startup is backed by Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank, Sequoia Capital, Eight Roads Venture, F-Prime Capital, Anupam Mittal, Cisco Investments, Helion Ventures, among others. It was last valued at $600 Mn

As per an Inc42 report, India’s enterprisetech sector saw the highest number of funding deals between 2014 and June 2022. Within this, the SaaS subsector topped with the highest number of deals and funding amount. SaaS startups raised $7.9 Bn between 2014 and the first half of 2022 of the total $11 Bn raised by enterprisetech startups. 

Update | 9th November, 17:40

The headline of the story has been updated to change the loss figure in order to exclude Fair Value loss of Liability Portion of CCPS which increased the finance cost of the company

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