Licious expects Rs 1,500 cr revenue in 12 months, IPO not before 2025-26: Co-founder Vivek Gupta

Meat and meat products online platform Licious expects its revenue to cross the Rs 1,500 crore mark in 12 months but it is not planning an initial public offer before 2025-26, according to company co-founder Vivek Gupta.

The company, which serves 28 Indian cities, including Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi-NCR, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai and Kolkata, through its online channel, is also looking to have presence through offline retail stores besides expanding its product offerings.

"We are right now at around Rs 1,000 crore run rate. In 12 months maybe we should look at Rs 1,500 crore kind of run rate," Gupta told PTI when asked about revenue growth guidance.

He further said, "In the last 12 months also we would have grown more than 50 per cent and that is how we look at. Every point of time revenue run rate goes up by 50 per cent in a 12-month period, is what I will continue to look at even in the future."

In the ongoing fiscal, Gupta said Licious will cross the Rs 1,000 crore revenue milestone, adding the company is also working with a very "sharp focus on driving profitability".

"My sense is that next calendar year of 2023, maybe 12 months from now we should be able to hit EBITDA profitability," he said.

On IPO plans of the company, which claims to be the country's first direct-to-consumer unicorn, Gupta said, "...first the company should earn financial independence. We need to be EBIDTA profitable and I will not take this company public before we start generating cash profit."

When asked about a possible timeline for going public, he said, "My fastest sense of the IPO will be in the financial year 2025-26, (it) looks more reasonable to me..."

By then, he said Licious will be a very different business, an "Indian homegrown brand loved by consumers and then generating cash that is a dream status".

Gupta said Licious has in total acquired around 28 lakh consumers till now, doing 11 lakh transactions a month with average order ticket size ranging between Rs 600 and Rs 650.

He said the company has been able to sustain the growth momentum witnessed during the pandemic having witnessed a little dip in the October-December period of last year when Covid-19 started settling down.

On expansion plans, he said at present Licious is not present in modern trade and general trade distribution too much with only one or two products to test the market.

"So, that is one channel we are looking forward to invest in, distributing Licious products in model trade. Second thing we are experimenting is with our Licious own stores, exclusive business outlets. We have as of today seven such stores which are either opened or a few of them are getting opened. These two channels we will continue to dial up in the next 12 months," he said.

Also, he said Licious plans to introduce new products, including widening the portfolio of the ready-to-eat meant segment along with different flavours encompassing tastes of different parts of India.