Indian cloud kitchen major Curefoods reported a 53% year-on-year growth in operating scale for the fiscal year ending March 2024. At the same time, the Bengaluru-based firm halved its losses by significantly reducing advertising costs..
Curefoods’ revenue from operations soared by 53.17% to Rs 585 crore in FY24 from Rs 382 crore in FY23, shows its consolidated financial statement sourced from the Registrar of Companies (RoC).
Curefoods is a cloud-kitchen platform which operates brands like EatFit, Yumlane, Aligarh House Biryani, Masalabox and CakeZone. At present, it has over 100 kitchens across 12 cities in India. The sale of these foods was the sole source of revenue for the company in the last fiscal year.
The company also made additional Rs 50 crore from interest income pushing Curefoods’ total income to Rs 635 crore in FY24.
On the expense side, the cost of materials remained the largest component, increasing by 33.72% to Rs 229.6 crore. Advertising expenses were reduced by 50.8% to Rs 52.8 crore, while employee benefit expenses rose by 43.18% to Rs 148.2 crore.
Guarantee commission expenses spiked 56% to Rs 109.2 crore, while depreciation costs also rose by 45.2% to Rs 62 crore. In the end, Curefoods’ total expenses nearly doubled to Rs 806.8 crore in FY24.
Due to sharp decline in advertising costs, the company managed to reduce its net loss by 50% to Rs 172.6 crore in FY24. Its ROCE and EBITDA margin stood at -23.31% and -12.88%, respectively. On a unit basis, Curefoods spent Rs 1.38 to earn a rupee in FY24. As of March 2024, the firm reported Rs 326 crore of current assets in FY24 including Rs 37.5 crore of cash and bank balance.
As per startup intelligence platform TheKredible, Curefoods has raised more than $200 million to date from the likes of Binny Bansal’s Three State Ventures, Accel, Chirate and Alteria.
Since its inception the Ankit Nagori-led company has also acquired more than a dozen cloud kitchen brands such as Yumlane, Smoodies, Cakezone, Maverix, Nomad Pizza, among others.
Curefoods is the second-largest player in the cloud kitchen segment after Rebel Foods. Rebel Foods, which recently raised $210 million in one of the largest funding rounds of 2024, reported an operating revenue of Rs 1,420 crore in FY24. Other notable players in the space include EatClub and Biryani By Kilo.
The sharp cutback on advertising costs tells its own story. Poorly crafted brand building, and now, what seems to be a commodification of the delivery business. Driven more by platforms than the restaurant or kitchen owners themselves. We believe in the long term, the high platform dependence does not augur well for anyone, as far as margins go.
While pockets of the market will grow, overall market size is not growing at the same rate, and platforms will keep up their margin creep. Will Curefoods become profitable before the margins become worse? No one can say with certainty, but we believe 2025 will see yet more efforts to shake the grip of Swiggy and Zomato on the food delivery business, however doomed that might seem for now. Domino’s remains the only success story thanks to their legacy delivery business, and the difference shows in more ways than one.
