FirstCry parent's revenue rises to Rs 239 crore in FY17

BENGALURU: In a financial year that it acquired Mahindra Retail, BrainBees Solutions, which owns online baby products retailer FirstCry, saw losses soar to Rs 393 crore in FY 2017, from Rs 277 crore in FY 16. The total revenue was Rs 239 crore for the period, a jump from Rs 173 crore the year before, according to Registrar of Company (RoC) filings accessed through Tofler.

"Although there was a considerable increase in the turnover of the company, the company has continued to incur a loss on account of increase in the costs spent on marketing, employee benefits and other overhead costs," the company said in its annual financial filings.

FirstCry's cofounder Supam Maheshwari did not respond to email queries. Industry analysts said niche vertical players like online baby care platforms will continue to see losses as they spend to "create the market."

"FY16-17 was a tough one in general for the ecommerce industry. Vertical players were also chasing rapid growth and experimenting with new marketing strategies and business models," said Mrigank Gutgutia from RedSeer Consulting. "Vertical ecommerce players will continue to face competition from horizontals, and will have to keep pushing on brand recall, service as well as omni-channel strategies."

As part of the acquisition of Mahindra Retail last year, the company raised Rs 226 crore in funding from Mahindra Group and Switzer land's Adveq, along with existing investors. ET reported last month that FirstCry was in talks to raise equity financing of Rs 665 crore for a valuation of $400-500 million. FirstCry has raised about about Rs 820 crore in funding so far.