Info Edge (India) Ltd Case Study: We have been hearing about many startups in India becoming unicorns. These range from food delivery startup Zomato, Policy Bazaar among various others.
But do you know which listed company in India is investing in these startups? In this article, we take a look at Info Edge which has been an angel investor to many companies including Policy Bazaar and Zomato.
Info Edge’s bet on Zomato paid off and it bagged a return of 1,050 times on Zomato investment. Info Edge has investments in more than 20 startup ventures, some of which will list on the Stock Exchanges in the future, enhancing the wealth of investors in the long run.
Keep Reading as we do a detailed analysis on one of India’s finest angel investors!
Table of Contents
History of Info Edge (India) Ltd
InfoEdge was incorporated in 1995 and launched its major business naukri.com just 2 years later in the year 1997. The company is also one of the few angel investing companies that have got listed on the National Stock Exchange on April 27th, 2006.
InfoEdge started with the recruitment portal business naukri.com. Later with time, it expanded to 99acres, Jeevansathi, and Shiksha.com. Info Edge has a strong play on the digitalization theme in India with its investments in tech companies like Zomato & Policy Bazaar.
In addition to this Info Edge (India) Ltd also has a strong reach throughout the country. The company has a network of 62 offices in India across 43 cities with an employee strength of 4049. In this article, we will try to understand the standalone and consolidated businesses of Info Edge.
Secondly, we will also cover the most important investment companies of InfoEdge.
Standalone Business of Info Edge (India) Ltd
InfoEdge has 4 different business verticals which it operates as a standalone entity owning 100% of the business.
- Naukri.com– recruitment portal.
- 99 Acres– Real estate advertisement portal.
- Jeevansathi.com– matrimonial portal.
- Shiksha.com-Educational Portal.
As of 2020 March, the revenue breakup of the standalone Info Edge business is as provided below:-
- 71% of its revenue comes from Naukri.com
- 18% of its revenue comes from 99 acres
- 6.6% of its revenue comes from Jeevansaathi.com
- 4.1 % comes from the educational portal Shiksha.com
Naukri.com
Naukri.com is the core business of Info edge and contributes around 71% of revenue for InfoEdge. It has an EBITDA profit margin of 55% which makes it a cash cow for Info Edge.
Naukri.com continues to use its market leadership position to grow its business. It does so by using its market leader position and popularity to its advantage.
As it has the highest number of job listings on its portal, it gets the most traffic of prospective employees which in turn leads to a high response rate. This further drives more clients to its portal for listing prospective job openings thereby maintaining a cycle of growth.
Naukri.com has above 70 % market share in the online recruitment portal business. It almost commands a monopoly in this space.
Naukri.com has a three-tier revenue model.
- It makes income from the jobs listed on its portal as well as providing resume database access to the employers.
It also generates revenue from branding & employer visibility advertisements on its portal.
This model contributes to around 90% of the revenue from Naukri.com.
- It also provides additional add on features & value added services which include resume writing, highlighting resume for job seekers.
- Additionally it also provides tools to search databases of resumes and job application screening programs for employer and recruitment consultant customers.
- Lastly, Naukri.com also generates income from google ad sense( third party advertisements displayed on its website).
99 Acres
99 acres, is a market leader in the online real estate market enjoying a market share of above 50%.
It is India’s first online platform which caters to the real estate market. It has a pan India listing of properties for sale, purchase, rent, and covering 25 plus cities.
The platform caters primarily to brokers, real estate developers, and builders and connects all these parties with the interested buyers and sellers.
In terms of traffic share, 99 acres is still the market leader but the share in traffic has dropped from 50% to 40% due to intense competition from other competitors like Magic bricks, Housing.com, and No broker.
The three major revenue streams for 99acres are:
1) Projects: listings, featured listings, microsites, email campaigns, and banner advertisements.
2) Resale of properties: Listings and featured listings.
3) Rental properties: Listing and featured listings.
The revenue of 99 acres was hit due to covid with advertising revenues coming down significantly.
Billings from 99acres rebounded with an excellent growth of 41.49% YOY during Q4
of FY2021 at 717.06 million revenue, after witnessing degrowth in revenue for the first 3 consecutive quarters.
Jeevansathi.com
Jeevansathi.com is the matrimonial online portal business of Info Edge which was acquired by Info edge in 2004.
20-25 million get married in India every year, which is the potential pool
of users for the category.
With increasing smartphone and internet penetration, along with increased migration of youth, online platforms are expected to take more share of this pie in the next three to
five years. The online matrimony market is expected to grow at 14%-15% CAGR in this period.
The south Indian market contributes to around 50% of business in the matchmaking market, but the growth has slowed down in recent years.
Jeevansathi has focused on the faster-growing North and West India, which has helped it to sustain higher growth momentum than its competition. It is one of the leaders in these markets through sharper focus and sustained investments made over the last few years in brand and product innovation.
Jeevansathi offers a matchmaking platform that allows users to register, search and express interest in prospective matches for free on the platform. Initiating conversations with other users through various means on the platform requires users to buy subscriptions for certain pre-defined durations.
Some value-added subscription plans also offer higher visibility on the platforms and assisted services. Almost all of Jeevansathi’s revenue is from subscriptions, which include first-time and renewing user payments.
Shiksha.com
Shiksha.com was launched in 2008 with an aim to connect the education seeker with education providers.
The demand for secondary education is growing rapidly in India, and siksha.com fills the gap by providing future students and college aspirants a platform to connect with education institutes
The website has been tactically positioned as a platform that helps students decide undergraduate and postgraduate options, by providing useful information on careers, exams, colleges, and courses.
According to a study conducted,45% of students will be open to an online education model from premium colleges/ universities in near future.
With higher penetration of the internet among students and ease of search and discovery offered by the platform, more students are coming online for their education, awareness, and information.
These factors are necessitating the greater use of the kind of services provided by shiksha.com.
Shiksha.com has a two-way revenue channel:-
- Advertising & branding revenues from Colleges & Universities
- Lead generation
Info Edge (India) Ltd Standalone Business Financials
After analyzing the revenue & EBITDA breakup of Info Edge’s various business verticals
We can infer that Naukri.com is the only consistent & substantial EBITDA positive business for Info Edge (India) Ltd in the last 5 years from 2017-2021 and is the cash cow for the company.
99 acres, the real estate portal business has doubled revenues in the past 5 years with almost breaking even in EBITDA terms in the year 2020. However, the advent of covid-19 has led to a pause in this business.
Jeevansaathi.com has grown revenue on a consistent basis. But in terms of profits, this business is draining cash with the losses almost doubling in the past 5 years.
The educational portal Shiksha.com has grown revenue at a good pace in the past 5 years,It has also become EBITA positive from 2018 onwards and has posted the highest EBITA of INR Rs 41million in 2021 since its inception.
Info Edge’s Investment Companies
Info Edge (India) Ltd has also made investments in a lot of startup companies in India, which also contributes a chunk to its overall business.
In total Info Edge has investments directly or indirectly in about 20 companies, most of the investee companies are still in a nascent stage. We will discuss the 2 companies in detail which are Zomato & Policy Bazaar.
Zomato
InfoEdge invested in Zomato limited food delivery and restaurant search portal in 2010.
It currently holds a 15.23% stake after selling a 3.32% stake for 375 crores through Zomato’s IPO.
The remaining stake of 15.23% is currently worth around 15000 Crore.
Let’s understand more about the business of Zomato:
Zomato is an online platform in the food delivery business which connects restaurants t. It also is also a platform for customers to search, discover, review and make reservations for restaurants.
It also operates Hyper pure, wherein it supplies ingredients to restaurants.
Zomato also owns a 9.3% stake in Grofers, one of the largest online grocery delivery platforms which give Info edge an indirect control of 1.37% in Grofers.
The majority of revenue earned by Zomato is through its food delivery business where it gets revenue in form of delivery charges and commissions from restaurants which vary between 10-20% of total delivery sales.
Zomato is growing sales at a high pace. However, its losses have also been rising due to its rapid expansion.
It had also ventured into the online grocery delivery segment but recently shut down that business due to bad customer experience and inventory management issues.
Financials of Zomato
From the table below, we can see that Zomato has grown revenue at a very fast pace over the last 3 years. The increase in revenue has come at a cost with the losses increasing at a higher pace.
Zomato is a net-zero debt company with cash reserves of about 15570 crores post the IPO which will help it to maneuver any unforeseen circumstances and competition from other players.
Apart from the scope of the food delivery business which has just covered the Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities in India, Zomato has a massive database of restaurants and food partners with a strong network of delivery personnel which will power its growth in the future.
Zomato has developed strong AI-based metrics of the food and beverage preferences & choices of its customers. This will be difficult to replicate by a new entrant in this space.
Zomato has also ventured into the cloud kitchen model, where it will directly compete with restaurants for a share in the hospitality segment.
With Swiggy being its only current competitor, Zomato is operating in a duopoly market with a wide potential for growth.
Policy Bazaar
Info Edge owns 13.98% in Policy Bazaar which is an online portal to help consumers compare various Insurance products and purchase them from their portal.
The insurance products range from personal insurance, health, vehicle, and travel insurance.
Policy Bazaar has tied up with various banks and financial intermediaries and charges commission from them by offering their insurance products on its portal.
It has a user base of 48mn consumers on its platform and has sold over 19mn policies as of 31st March 2021.
According to a report by Frost & Sullivan, 65% of all online insurance sales in India by volume were processed through Policy Bazaar. This indicates its stronghold in the digital insurance market.
68% of Policy Bazaar’s revenue comes from commissions from premiums of insurance products sold on its website.
The remaining comes from the marketing, support, and consulting services it offers to its financial partners on Paisabazaar.com wholly-owned subsidiary.
Policy Bazaar has reported sales of 957cr in 2020-2021, 855cr in 2019-2020, and 528.8 cr in 2018-2019. Its losses have reduced to 150 cr in 2020-2021 from 304 cr in 2019-2020.
Source: INC 42
InfoEdge’s 13.98% stake in Policybazaar is currently valued at 250 million approximately as per Policy Bazaar’s latest funding round where it raised funds at a valuation of 2.4$ billion.
Policy Bazaar has already filed for its IPO which is coming up in this financial year 2021-2022.
Consolidated Business Financials
Info Edge has reported flat revenue in the past three financial years. The other income which comprises income from investee companies of Info Edge has been rapidly rising.
InfoEdge’s profit has varied significantly between 2019-2021.However this is not a matter of great concern as most of the companies where Info Edge has invested are still in the early stages. Therefore it will take some years to grow revenue and profits consistently.
Although Info Edge has reported a significant jump in its profits for the year 2021, the majority profits are from the other income category.
In Closing: The way ahead for Info Edge (India) Ltd?
The business verticals of Info Edge will benefit immensely from the improvement in internet penetration in India.
The smartphone user base is growing at a swift pace which is adding to the growth in the digital businesses across India. There are currently 749 million users of mobile internet in India, this data will only improve from here on.
InfoEdge plans to capture most of the market in the online recruitment, real estate, matrimony, food delivery, and financial products space in India. They plan to do this on their own and through their invested companies which are largely in the digital space.
Info edge’s other investments in digital companies like Zomato & Policy Bazaar have yielded fruitful results.
Info Edge has other investments in 18 companies. The majority of these companies are building platforms in the BTB segment in the digital space.
Info Edge’s current market cap is around 80,000 crores. Info Edge is currently trading at an all-time high price. The stock price has nearly doubled from the lows.
Info Edge’s high market capitalization and high Price-Earnings Ratio show that the stock has priced in the future growth expectations.
We believe the growth in Info Edge’s other investee businesses will determine how the stock will perform in the future. All eyes will be on Policy Bazaar’s IPO, which will be the key for the stock in the short run.
That’s all for this post on Info Edge (India) Ltd. Let us know what you think about InfoEdge in the comments below. Happy Investing!
