Urban Ladder aims to hit profits next fiscal, plans IPO by 2020

Home furnishing company Urban Ladder expects to hit profits by next financial year as it expands network of physical stores in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru, and further strengthens its product portfolio.

The Ratan Tata-backed company has five physical retail stores in Bengaluru and Gurugram apart from its online operations.

"We are expecting a touch and go zone in April-June quarter and hope to be profitable by July-September quarter in Bangalore city, which is our primary place of business and a large part of our business. Our next financial year will be a profitable one (overall) which will be churning cash financially," Urban Ladder co-founder and CEO Ashish Goel told PTI.

While he declined to share the revenue details, Goel said the company intends to release the half-yearly financial details from the October quarter as the company is looking at becoming a public company.

"I have given a mandate till Diwali 2019 to my team... we expect it to happen by March or July 2020 and have told the team to prepare for scrutiny, disclosures, quality of planning and predictability in the business accordingly to meet all the requirements," he said.

As per documents filed with the Corporate Affairs Ministry, Urban Ladder Home Decor Solutions had a consolidated revenue from operations of Rs 94.5 crore for the fiscal ended March 2017 as compared to Rs 55.7 crore in the previous fiscal, a growth of almost 70 per cent.

It also reduced losses to Rs 154.9 crore for the year ended March 2017 from Rs 181.6 crore in the previous fiscal, the documents showed.

Asked if the company will look at raising additional funds before going the IPO route, Goel said the company is well-capitalised for another 18 months but will start raising funds during the later half of the year, if required.

"(We will, if need be, raise) up to maximum of 20 million which is going to be among series E of raising funds," he said.

Urban Ladder has raised over USD 100 million from investors -- Sequoia Capital, SAIF Partners, Kalaari Capital and Steadview Capital, among others.

Goel said its product-led investment and in-house designing have been growth drivers for the company. The company has around 550 employees, of which about 60 per cent are engaged in operations, logistics and delivery that is managed in-house.

Asked about expansion of physical stores, Goel said it currently operates one outlet in Gurugram and four outlets at Bengaluru -- three being large format (4,500-6,000 sq ft) and one is a smaller format (about 700 sq ft) store.

"The focus is on expanding and going deeper in Bangalore and NCR total of 15 stores across the 2 cities," he added.

He added that the company expects to invest about USD 3 million in these stores at Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR during this financial year.