MyGate revenue to double in FY25, expected to grow 30-50% in the next few years

“We are at a stage where we can achieve at least 30% year-over-year growth on the back of social and advertising revenue. With some new verticals and experiments, we may be able to drive 50% growth,” said the company’s co-founder said Abhishek Kumar, CEO.

Kumar claimed that the startup became company-wide profitable in 2024-25 and is on track to almost double its revenue this financial year, adding that the company can easily maintain its growth momentum of 30-50 per cent.

In 2023-24, the company’s revenue will be $1.1 billion, loss reduced by 82% $400 million rupees.

sharp focus

Founder told Mint The company has shaken off early disruption and is focused on building a sustainable business and going public. He did not reveal any timetable for an initial public offering (IPO) but said the company was already seriously considering it.

The main drivers of growth are the acquisition of new communities and residences. While the company currently reaches about 4 million households, it is adding about 100,000 households every month.

“We estimate that there are 25 million households living in gated communities, and we are in a community with only 4 million. Every month we are acquiring communities, and as our targets grow, so does our team,” he explain.

While 65-70% of revenue currently comes from advertising, about 30% comes from software as a service (SaaS). Kumar says advertising makes it a very viable business. He noted that while this is a comfortable split, SaaS’s share is likely to increase.

Talking about the challenges faced by software products, Kumar said, “We think there is money to be made by combining SaaS with social, but you can’t make money from SaaS alone in India. India is the world’s software exporter, but non-Indians are Pay.”

He added that communities are almost always short of cash. “As a Resident Welfare Association (RWA) member, it is very difficult to run it as a business. They have a different full-time job and they go out of their way to do this very thankless job. The residents are also not paying on time. You always It turns out they think we need to pay less to suppliers and now, with advertising, we create a win-win situation,” he said.

The industry hasn’t seen much activity recently due to difficulties scaling SaaS offerings in the social management space. Indian customers are very price sensitive, making it difficult to price solutions competitively while maintaining profitability. The freemium model often results in users staying on the free tier without converting to a paid plan.

MyGate’s main competitors include ApnaComplex (acquired by real estate services company Anarock), Adda and the deep-pocketed NoBroker.

NoBroker’s entry into the residential community app market in 2018 marked a turning point in MyGate’s strategy, as the company shifted its focus from revenue generation to aggressive customer acquisition. As it became increasingly difficult to attract customers to pay, MyGate shifted its focus to a sustainable model, and advertising began to pay off.

As part of new experiments beyond advertising and SaaS, the company launched MyGate Locks, its line of smart door locks, in September 2024. “We now view it as an option value. When we believe that, we will scale. We have solved the profitability issue but it is still at a very early stage,” Kumar said.

painful lesson

The company tried a lot of things and burned money. Now, the company plans to grow the business slowly and sustainably, the co-founders said.

“The first distraction is I don’t want to have more money in the bank than we need. Let’s say some venture capital (VC) money comes along and says, oh, you’re doing great, take $100 million; I don’t know if I will Super happy about that. It’s going to be a major distraction for us,” he said.

“Whatever amount we raise, we will be locked in the bank. The safety net is enough and it also allows us to do some experiments, which is what we are doing with smart devices,” Kumar added.

Talking about past mistakes, Kumar said the company’s monetization journey should have started earlier. “We started being profitable in 2021. So, if you see, the history of MyGate’s revenue in 2020-21 is $8 crores but we started in 2016-17. we have $Annual revenue of Rs 10 crore is nothing for a company that has raised $60 million,” he said.

MyGate has raised about $80 million in funding from investors including Tencent and Tiger Global Management.

Kumar said scale remains a challenge, but he’s optimistic. “Our vision is to make MyGate available to 25 million households in gated communities in India.”