Highlights
Exotel Reports Steady Growth Despite Challenging Fiscal Year
Bengaluru-based cloud telephony service provider Exotel has announced a steady performance for the fiscal year ending March 2024. Despite experiencing flat revenue growth, the company significantly enhanced its financial stability, achieving a notable reduction in losses by over 60%. This positive outcome was primarily attributed to strategic cost-cutting initiatives, particularly in employee benefits and marketing expenditures.
Financial Performance Overview
According to the consolidated annual financial statements filed with the Registrar of Companies, Exotel’s revenue from operations grew by 5.7%, reaching Rs 444 crore in FY24, up from Rs 420 crore in FY23.
Core Solutions and Revenue Streams
Exotel offers cloud-based voice and SMS contact centre solutions that help businesses streamline customer engagement effectively. The main revenue sources include:
- Internet-enabled cloud communication services
- Software licensing
- Chatbot services
- Sales of products, including APIs, browser extensions, software development kits, and mobile applications
While Exotel has not disclosed a detailed breakdown of income from the above services, it noted that 14% of its business originated from Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa during FY24. Additionally, the company generated Rs 16 crore from interest on deposits and investments, bringing total revenue to Rs 460 crore in FY24, compared to Rs 447 crore in FY23.
Cost Management Strategies
For the cloud-based voice and SMS contact centre firm, the expenses related to telephone and postage accounted for 39% of total costs, which escalated by 10.2%, amounting to Rs 195 crore in FY23. Exotel successfully curtailed employee benefits expenses, which decreased by 24% to Rs 186 crore in FY24, compared to Rs 245 crore in FY23.
It is also noteworthy that Exotel undertook workforce reductions during FY24, decreasing its employee count by 15%.
Total Expenditure Insights
The company’s efforts to reduce spending extended to advertising, legal fees, payment gateway costs, travel, information technology, and other overheads. As a result, total expenditure fell to Rs 499 crore in FY24, down from Rs 555 crore in FY23. Detailed expense breakdowns are available from various sources.
Loss Reduction and Financial Ratios
Despite modest revenue growth, effective cost management enabled Exotel to shrink its losses by 60.6%, bringing them down to Rs 43 crore in FY24 from Rs 109 crore in FY23. As reported by Startup Superb, Exotel’s EBITDA losses stood at Rs 16 crore for the same fiscal year.
The expense-to-revenue ratio for Exotel was noted at Rs 1.12, with return on capital employed (ROCE) and EBITDA margins at -8.9% and -3.48%, respectively. The annual statements revealed that total current assets were recorded at Rs 379 crore, with cash and bank balances amounting to Rs 206 crore as of March 2024.
Funding and Stakeholder Information
Exotel has successfully raised over $100 million to date, including a $40 million Series D funding round led by Steadview Capital in 2022. As per startup data intelligence platforms, A91 Partners holds the largest external stake at 25.7%, followed by Blume Ventures.
Competitive Landscape
Exotel faces competition from firms such as Gupshup-owned Knowlarity, MyOperator, Ozonotel, Tata Communications, and others in the cloud telephony sector.
