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D2C beauty brand Plum turns around in FY25 with Rs 25 Cr PAT

EntrackrEntrackr · 24d ago
D2C beauty brand Plum turns around in FY25 with Rs 25 Cr PAT
Medial

Direct-to-consumer beauty and personal care brand Plum has managed to script a turnaround in FY25, achieving profitability on the back of steady double-digit growth and controlled expenses. Plum’s revenue from operations rose 23.3% to Rs 402 crore in FY25 from Rs 326 crore in FY24, according to its financial statements sourced from the Registrar of Companies (RoC). Founded in 2013, Plum sells skincare, bodycare, fragrances, haircare, and gifting products through its own website and third-party e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and Flipkart. Revenue from product sales continues to be its only operating stream. It also added Rs 17 crore from interest income and gains on mutual funds, which took the company’s total income to Rs 419 crore during the last fiscal year. When it comes to expenses, Plum is no different from other D2C brands as advertising and promotion remained its largest cost at Rs 139 crore in FY25, though this was down 7% from the previous fiscal. Cost of materials consumed stood at Rs 128 crore, while employee benefit expenses rose 20.8% during the fiscal year ending March 2025. During the last fiscal year, storage, commissions, freight, legal, and other overheads pushed its total expenditure to Rs 400 crore. The combination of revenue growth and expense rationalisation helped Plum post a profit after tax of Rs 25 crore in FY25 as against a loss of Rs 84 crore in FY24. On a unit level, it spent Re 1 to earn a rupee of operating revenue during the fiscal year. Profitability metrics also saw a marked improvement with EBITDA margin and ROCE turning positive at 6.22% and 5.3%, respectively. At the end of FY25, the company’s total current assets were valued at Rs 269 crore, including Rs 92 crore in cash and bank balances. Plum has raised over $50 million across rounds, including its $35 million in a Series C round led by A91 Partners with participation from existing investors Unilever Ventures and Faering Capital in March 2022. In the D2C beauty space, Plum competes with Juicy Chemistry, Wow Skin, MamaEarth, and Sugar Cosmetics among many others. Operating in what is clearly a crowded marketplace with both startups and established incumbents, Plum has done well to keep growth going and move into the black. However, keeping it that way will not be easy, considering the nature of the marketplace. The market remains shallow, and for most firms, well penetrated, leaving broader economic growth and expansion as the best hope for the category as a whole. For Plum, that might mean seeking newer avenues like exports, or portfolio tweaks which will not be easy to manage if the focus is to remain on staying profitable. The positioning as India’s first vegan beauty brand is good, but certainly not powerful enough to move customers towards it in ever larger numbers for now. We believe the firm is poised to make a decisive move accordingly, either as an attractive acquisition target, or perhaps, a hopeful sprint towards say, a Rs 1000 crore target by 2030 to deliver for all its stakeholders now.

SaveSage Club raises angel round

EntrackrEntrackr · 10m ago
SaveSage Club raises angel round
Medial

Credit card and loyalty management platform SaveSage Club has raised Rs 2.5 crore in an angel funding round co-led by iSEED, Alluvium Fund, and LetsVenture Fund, along with participation from angel investors including Bhavesh Gupta, Shriram Nene, Ritesh Malik, Ramneek Sehgal, Mayank Gupta, Rahul Mathur, Piyush Nangru, Utkarsh Kumar, Amit Goel, and others. The funds will be used to expand the platform’s AI-driven capabilities, refine user experience, and drive rapid growth, SaveSage Club said in a press release. Launched in April 2024 by Ashish Lath, SaveSage Club provides a seamless, centralized solution to track, manage, and optimize over 500 credit cards and 74 loyalty programs, including popular options like Air India Maharaja, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, and Marriott Bonvoy. The platform aims to reshape how users manage their credit cards and loyalty programs. The Gurugram-based company aims to become the go-to platform for users seeking to make smarter financial decisions and maximize their rewards. The company addresses the very low awareness of reward optimization by serving as a bridge between users and their financial potential. Through its intuitive AI-powered platform, it simplifies the process of reward optimization, empowering users to effortlessly track, manage, and maximize benefits across a vast range of credit cards and loyalty programs. According to market research, India’s credit card ecosystem is poised for exponential growth, with over 107 million credit cards in circulation across more than 60 million users. The introduction of credit cards on UPI is expected to double these figures within three years. Within weeks of its beta launch, SaveSage Club claims to have attracted over 5,000 users, ranging from IT professionals to Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNIs), who value the platform’s ability to streamline and optimize their credit card and loyalty program reward points and benefits.

RBI introduces Offline CBDC; users can pay without internet

EntrackrEntrackr · 14d ago
RBI introduces Offline CBDC; users can pay without internet
Medial

In a groundbreaking leap for India’s digital payments ecosystem, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has unveiled the Offline Digital Rupee enabling users to transact without internet or even telecom connectivity. The new feature allows payments to be made with just a tap or with QR, effectively making digital money work as seamlessly as physical cash. Launched today at the Global Fintech Fest (GFF) 2025 in Mumbai, this marks a major milestone in the RBI’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) journey, positioning India as one of the first countries in the world to operationalize an offline version of a CBDC. Cash, but digital: India’s programmable CBDC goes truly offline. The offline feature was launched in collaboration with HDFC Bank, a key partner in the RBI’s pilot program. Visuals showcased at the event illustrated real-world use cases such as paying for tea in the Himalayas or making rural market purchases without connectivity. The rollout forms part of RBI’s Programmable Central Bank Digital Currency (PCBDC) initiative which not only allows offline transactions but also introduces programmability, enabling restrictions or specific use conditions on digital rupees for targeted schemes, subsidies, and corporate disbursements. Unlike UPI, which requires an active internet connection and routing through bank servers, Offline Digital Rupee transactions occur directly between two digital wallets using near-field communication (NFC) or other secure proximity technologies. The payment process is instant: users simply tap their phone or device to the receiver’s, and the value transfers from one wallet to another even in low or no network zones. Each transaction is executed in digital rupee denominations, with change automatically generated in the wallet, mirroring the behavior of physical cash. The RBI and participating banks say the offline CBDC will be cheaper and faster than UPI, as it eliminates intermediary switches, payment gateways, and network dependencies. While UPI revolutionized online payments, the offline digital rupee is poised to extend that revolution into the next frontier: payments without connectivity. The feature supports both Person-to-Person (P2P) transfers and Person-to-Merchant (P2M) payments, making it interoperable with existing UPI QR infrastructure. “This is not just a technological advancement, it's a foundational shift in how money can move in a connected and unconnected India,” said a senior banker on condition of anonymity. As India continues to set global benchmarks in digital finance, the Offline Digital Rupee could well inspire central banks worldwide to rethink the next generation of sovereign digital currencies.

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