Inshorts reports 34% rise in losses to Rs 310 crore in FY23; revenue stood at Rs 181 crore

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InShorts, an online news aggregator, experienced a modest 9% increase in revenue in the fiscal year ending March 2023, reaching Rs 181 crore.

The growth, however, is significantly lower than the 45% revenue increase seen in the previous fiscal year. Despite this growth, the company’s losses deepened by over 36%, resulting in a loss of Rs 310 crore in FY23, compared to Rs 232 crore in FY22, Entrackr reported, citing the company’s financial statements filed with the Registrar of Companies

Investment in Public app

The company’s investment in its location-based social network app, Public, appears to have contributed to its financial strain. Public, launched in late 2019, has achieved nearly 220 million downloads. However, InShorts has not disclosed the specific revenue generated from this app.

The company’s overall expenditure, including content and employee benefits costs, rose significantly, indicating a strategic focus on growing the Public app.

What are the revenue sources?

InShorts’ primary revenue source remains advertising, which brought in Rs 147 crore, a 4.3% increase from the previous year. The company’s total expenditure in FY23 was Rs 492 crore, a substantial increase from Rs 399 crore in FY22. This expense rise was largely due to higher content costs, employee benefits, and other operational costs.

The company’s directors, Harshil Dhingra and Deepit Purkayastha, each drew a salary of Rs 1.47 crore in FY23. The increased expenditure on employee benefits and content creation suggests a strategic push towards enhancing the Public app.

Summarizing news articles

Founded in 2013 by Azhar Iqubal and Deepit Purkayastha, Inshorts summarizes news articles from different categories in 60 words. The platform claims to be India’s largest short news aggregator platform, with best-in-class retention and a strong user base in Tier-I cities.

Azhar Iqubal recently became the Shark Tank India Season 3 judge. Before Iqubal, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal and OYO CEO Ritesh Agarwal joined as judges of the upcoming Season 3.