The founders of Licious, Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta, have been focused on making their meat delivery startup profitable. However, internal documents accessed by Moneycontrol reveal that this decision has resulted in a flattish revenue trajectory for the company in FY24.
While Licious saw a 64 percent increase in its revenue from INR 430 crore in FY21 to INR 706 crore in FY22, its revenues seem to have plateaued since then. Reports suggest that Licious ended FY23 with a revenue of INR 700 crore, less than half of its initial projection of INR 1,500 crore. In the first five months of FY24, Licious appears to be following a similar path.
The company's monthly revenues have remained in the range of INR 62-68 crore throughout FY24. In April, it recorded a revenue of INR 62.9 crore, which decreased slightly to INR 62.5 crore in May. Although sales increased to INR 64.5 crore in June and INR 68.1 crore in July, they fell back to INR 62.6 crore in August.
Licious attributed the 8 percent sequential drop in August to fewer meat consumption during the festival season. While the company remains optimistic about September, it expects revenues to decline in the coming months. Stability in the business is anticipated only after Diwali in November.
For the April-June quarter, Licious reported revenues of INR 189.9 crore, which translates to an annualized revenue run rate of INR 759.9 crore. The company is likely to end the current quarter with revenues of about INR 180-200 crore, indicating another year of flat revenue growth for Licious.
The shift from a growth rate of around 20 percent month-on-month (MoM) to approximately 6-8 percent MoM is attributed to limited access to capital and investors' focus on more than just topline growth.
Licious' business is seasonal, with demand fluctuating throughout the year due to festivals and other occasions. To offset sales loss on these days, the company ventured into the plant-based meat category with Uncrave. However, adoption of the product has been slow, with no significant revenue gains.
To diversify income streams, Licious is expanding its offline presence and recently opened five offline stores in the Delhi-NCR region. The online meat delivery market is projected to be a $80-85 billion opportunity by 2024, up from $40-45 billion in 2019, according to Redseer. However, online orders are almost 50 percent more expensive than local meat shops.
Licious has seen consistent monthly cash burn in the range of INR 22-26 crore, with some fluctuations. While the burn reduced by around 40 percent on a year-on-year basis, it remains significant.
Founded in 2015, Licious is the highest-funded company in the fresh animal protein category, having raised approximately $490 million from various investors. It competes primarily with Amazon-backed FreshToHome in the online meat delivery market.
