Losses widened 10% to Rs 101 crore in FY21 from Rs 91 crore in the previous financial year.
The company, which sells FMCG products to kirana (corner) stores, said it was in “the process of expansion of the distribution network pan-India and hence there has been heavy distribution expenses resulting in the net loss.”
Most of these were one-off expenses, it said.
ElasticRun – founded by former Amazon executives Sandeep Deshmukh, Shitiz Bansal and Saurabh Nigam in 2016 – acts as an extended arm of the direct distribution networks of FMCG companies in rural areas to provide these brands with new customers.
P&G, Pepsico, Dabur, Marico, Godrej, Britannia are some of the brands that have partnered with ElasticRun.
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According to its financial statement, most of its inventory consists of biscuits, toothpaste, oil, and sugar.
The company
became a unicorn – or those privately held companies with a valuation of $1 billion or more – in the current financial year after raising $330 million led by Japan’s SoftBank and Goldman Sachs. The company tripled its valuation from $400 million to $1.5 billion after the funding round, ET
reported on February 7, citing regulatory filings.
The kirana e-commerce space is flush with tech companies with the likes of Udaan, Reliance’s JioMart, Amazon, Indore-based Shop.kirana all trying to organise the unorganised retail network.
ElasticRun focuses on solving for the rural market alone, and acts as an extended arm of FMCG companies’ existing distribution network. Hence, its approach is collaborative rather than disruptive, Deshmukh
had told ET earlier. Udaan and JioMart have
faced protests from existing distribution channels for alleged undercutting of prices.
The company runs an asset-light distribution network by crowdsourcing the human resources, and transport vehicles from various channels, and stitching together a virtual transportation network.
