Whichever kitchen Faasos is working out of, it is not smelling good. The company has been around a long time now, and it has been trying a whole host of things. It has got some marquee investors: Sequoia, Lightbox, Ru-Net South Asia, Beenext, RB Investments and Anand Lunia (Partner at IndiaQuotient). But the stuff Faasos is selling, food and beverages, it is not quite clear if there’s money in it. The pointlessness of this enterprise can be traced to its cost structure—there, it will be fair to say, that the kitchen is on fire.
Total Funding
- $60 million
Fassos
Fassos Food Services Private Limited
As per MCA records
Jaydeep Barman
Founder
Pune
Headquarters
Investors
Competitors
What has Faasos been up to in the last year?
A lot actually. As we’ve written before in our story, The twists and rolls of Faasos, just in the last eighteen months, Faasos has changed its business model thrice. And four times in the last thirteen years. It tried to become a Quick Service Restaurant (QSR), then a dark kitchen, which means no storefronts, followed by a marketplace and then, a multi-brand cloud kitchen. Is this last pivot going to work? Jaydeep Barman is an optimist. He says that he is finally on to something, which will make money. It is another matter altogether that Faasos’ numbers should make any mortal man worry about the challenges that lie ahead.
Results:
Rs 62 crore: That’s the money Faasos made from operations as of March 2016. That is, selling food and beverages and from commission income. In the previous year, as of March 2015, the company recorded income from operations of Rs 37.5 crore. Faasos’ income has almost doubled year on year.
Rs 168 crore: This was the total expense recorded by Faasos as of March 2016. This is a significant step up over last year. As of March 2015, Faasos recorded a total expense of Rs 58 crore. Expenses have gone up almost 3X, year on year.
Rs 111 crore: That’s Faasos’ loss as of March 2016. In the previous year, it recorded a loss of Rs 24 crore. For every crore in the pocket, Faasos lost about Rs 2 crore.
Rs 14.5 crore: For the standalone results, this is Faasos’ cash & bank balance as of March 2016. It is a significantly low balance compared to the previous year’s amount of Rs 91 crore.
Rs 36 crore: That’s Faasos’ cost of food items. According to the filing, the company did not have the details of the broad classes of food consumption. Roughly understood, the company spent Rs 36 crore in food items to sell food and beverages of about Rs 62 crore. In the previous year, Faasos spent Rs 18.8 crore on food items.
Rs 47 crore: As of March 2016, that’s the money Faasos spent on advertising, publicity and sales promotion. Almost a 10X increase compared to the previous year when the company spent just Rs 4.6 core. Almost the entire jump in income (from Rs 37.5 crore to Rs 62 crore) seems to be riding on the back of increased spending on advertising. There’s a similar increase in the salary cost, which went up from Rs 18 crore as of March 2015 to Rs 47.7 crore as of March 2016.
50%: Sequoia’s cumulative shareholding in Faasos*
Addendum (10 February): *The number 50% shareholding is for preference shares only.
