When non-cash expenses for the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) are taken into account, the company’s overall losses remain essentially identical at Rs 42 crore.
In its FY22 audited results released on Thursday, manufacturing services unicorn Zetwerk recorded a six-fold increase in its overall revenues of Rs 4,961 crore from the year-ago period.
In FY21 and FY20, it had both recorded overall revenues of Rs 835 crore and Rs 321.7 crore. When non-cash expenses for the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) are taken into account, the company’s overall losses remain essentially identical at Rs 42 crore. In FY21, Zetwerk recorded a total loss of Rs 41.2 crore.
Amrit Acharya, co-founder and chief executive of Zetwerk, explained the increase in sales to ET by citing the company’s consumer manufacturing division as well as the revenue growth from its overseas clients.
“Our revenue growth is primarily being driven by two factors. One is the expansion of sales from global markets, which is mostly driven by the US. In the previous fiscal year, our international revenues increased by 5% to reach 16%. It is expanding more quickly than our domestic company. Second, businesses have been investing their profits over the past year on capital projects and the development of manufacturing infrastructure, according to Acharya in an interview with ET.
At the moment, consumer manufacturing revenues make up 30% of Zetwerk’s total revenues, with overseas operations contributing 16%. Additionally, almost 70% of the company’s overseas revenues come from the US market.
The unicorn said that on an operational level, it made an EBITDA profit of Rs. 57 crore. Additionally, the total gross merchandise value (GMV) increased six-fold in FY22, from 951 crore to 5,718 crore.
Zetwerk is a controlled marketplace for contract manufacturing that was established in 2018. The business collaborates with commercial and consumer businesses to create their goods through a global network of small producers.
The main trend, according to Acharya, is still that Indian businesses want to localize their manufacturing there. Global manufacturers are also looking to India to diversify their manufacturing setups away from places like China.
In order to lessen their reliance on imports, Indian businesses aim to move their manufacturing there. Additionally, in FY20, modifications were made to the policy and regulations for imports and production to lessen dependence on China, according to Acharya.
The Indian government launched the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme in 2021 with an investment of Rs 2 lakh crore for 14 industries, including, among others, white goods, specialty steel, automotive, and auto components.
The goal was to lower import costs and raise the cost-competitiveness of items produced domestically.
The major manufacturing sectors for Zetwerk continue to be cement, metals, and renewables.
Zetwerk has an open order book totaling Rs 9,750 crore that will be completed in FY23 and FY24 as of September. Acharya declined to disclose the precise investment amount for the development, but the company intends to use its cash to increase its manufacturing capacity through captive plants.
Zetwerk raised $210 million in December 2021 as part of its third significant equity financing, which was spearheaded by Greenoaks Capital and valued the business at $2.7 billion. Zetwerk joined the Indian unicorn club earlier in 2021 after raising $150 million under the leadership of D1 Capital, which valued the business at $1.3 billion.
The company announced in June of this year that it had paid Rs 100 crore to buy three businesses in order to boost its vertical businesses in the infrastructure component, aerospace, military, and oil and gas industries.
