RPSG VENTURES

Current market price -: 299 Rs (Price on the date of publishing this report)

RPSG Ventures formerly know as CESC Ventures is a part of 41 years old The RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group with asset base of more than USD $6 billion, commonly known as RPSG Group an Indian industrial and services conglomerate headquartered in Kolkata, West Bengal. It is in the business of owning, operating, investing and promoting business in the fields of information technology, business process outsourcing and such other ventures including fast moving consumer goods business .

RPSG Ventures Ltd was incorporated on February 7, 2017 as a wholly owned subsidiary of CESC Limited (‘CESC’), a flagship company of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group (‘the Group’), engaged in the business of generation and distribution of electricity across 567 square kilometres of its licensed area in Kolkata and Howrah in West Bengal, India. 

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With a rich heritage, RPSG Group today is one of the most revered business conglomerates of India. The Group inspires trust and credibility through its value-driven business culture and thought-leadership. RPSG Group was established in its current form in 2011, but the Group has foundations of the Goenka family’s two centuries of illustrious history in Indian business.

RPSG Ventures Ltd was incorporated with the objective of engaging, inter alia, in the business of owning, operating, investing and promoting business in the fields of information technology, business process outsourcing and such other ventures (including fast moving consumer goods business) as may be identified by Board.

Given the diversified business portfolio of CESC and its subsidiaries, holding interests in various sectors including renewable energy (including wind, solar and hydro power stations/projects) business process outsourcing, real estate, entertainment and distribution franchisee businesses, CESC considered it imperative to reorient and reorganise itself to enable a greater focus on each relevant business area. 

Accordingly, the Scheme was filed with the NCLT. The NCLT approved the Scheme on March 28, 2018 subject to certain terms and conditions. Pursuant to the Scheme, the IT Undertaking has been transferred to our Company and our Company has allotted Equity Shares to shareholders of CESC Limited on the record date specified in the Scheme in the ratio of 10:2.

Pursuant to the Scheme, RPSG Ventures Ltd core business shall be information technology and information technology related services. RPSG Ventures Ltd shall, on an arm’s length basis, provide all information technology related routine and expert services to the members of the Group. With an initial focus on servicing the needs of CESC and its subsidiaries our Company plans to gradually expand the scope of its operations and provide such services outside the Group as well. The major operations of our Company will be under the categories of product development, operations and maintenance of existing applications, operation and maintenance of infrastructure and assets relating to information technology including all software and hardware elements, undertaking major IT projects from conceptualization to implementation, furnishing reports and records as required, conforming performance parameters and ensuring business process efficiency.

Further, pursuant to the transfer of the IT Undertaking into RPSG Ventures Ltd and the amalgamation of Spen Liq Private Limited into RPSG Ventures Ltd, certain investments have vested in RPSG Ventures Ltd. In addition, RPSG Ventures Ltd proposes to make its own investments including in venture capital funds.

Further, pursuant to the transfer of the IT Undertaking into RPSG Ventures Ltd and the amalgamation of Spen Liq Private Limited into RPSG Ventures Ltd, certain investments have vested in our Company. 

Firstsource Solutions Limited

Firstsource Solutions Limited (“FSL”), a company listed on BSE and NSE and engaged in the business of business process outsourcing, has become a subsidiary in RPSG Ventures Ltd pursuant to the Scheme. 

FSL is among the leading business process outsourcing companies in India with delivery centres across India, the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Philippines. FSL operates an information technology and BPM business in the areas of customer management, transaction processing and collection service to Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 companies in the US and UK that operate in the telecom and media (“T&M”) and banking, financial services and insurance industries (“BFSI”).

The firm claims that it currently serves over 100 global clients from multiple delivery centres and in various languages. A multinational company, Firstsource has over 30,000 employees in India, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, the US, Ireland and the UK.

During the year ended March 2020 FSL’s total income (including other income) increased by 7.2% from ` 3,830.2 crore in 2018-19 to ` 4,107.5 crore in 2019-20. Expenses grew at 9.4%, from ` 3,394.2 crore in 2018-19 to ` 3,713.2 crore in 2019-20. PBT amounted to ` 394.2 crore in 2019-20 and PAT for the year stood at ` 339.7 crore. 

Nanobi Data and Analytics Private Limited

Nanobi was founded in 2012 by a group of five – Ramakrishnan, Sumant Sarkar, CV Vinod, S Jayaprakash and Abhishek Purohit. It provides businesses with products and analytic solutions to help them better manage their business and customers. A cloud-based Business Intelligence platform, Nanobi also lets customers build analytic applications for use and consumption by consumers of information. Their analytical solutions deliver measurable business impact across revenue upside, cost optimization and end-consumer delight to clients in the Healthcare, BFSI and Retail verticals.

At present, the startup serves 26 clients, majority of whom are located in India.

The additional companies which pursuant to the Scheme, are direct subsidiaries of our Company are: Quest Properties India Limited (“Quest”), which is engaged inter alia in the business of property development, operation of mall and other real estate properties and owns and operates the “Quest Mall” in Kolkata (which inter alia houses shops, retail outlets, an entertainment zone, a multiplex, food court and fine dining. Quest is also in the business of making various investments including in venture capital funds.

Quest Properties India Limited (QPIL), launched the Quest, Kolkata’s first upscale shopping mall in November 2013. QPIL is implementing a residential project in Haldia spread across 3.5 acres of land. In 2019-20, it completed Phase I of the project comprising about 0.2 million square feet of saleable area; most of the apartments that were constructed have been handed over.

Bowlopedia Restaurants India Limited (“Bowlopedia”), which operates eleven restaurants in Kolkata, New Delhi and the National Capital Region under the brand names “Waffle Wallah” and “The Chef’s Bowl”. Through Bowlopedia, the Group operates three quick service restaurant businesses under the brands Waffle Wallah, Bombay Toastee and Biryani Battuta.

During the year Ending March 2020, BRIL expanded its portfolio with the launch of “Biryani Battuta”, a specialty biryani and kebabs brand in the Mughlai, North Indian Cuisine segment. This added to its existing brands of “Waffle Wallah” and “Bombay Toastee”, which operate in the Desserts and Indian Comfort Food segments, respectively. 

At the end of 2019-20, BRIL had 24 outlets, compared to 21 a year ago. The Company’s total income (including other income) grew by 27.1% from ` 7 crore in 2018-19 to ` 8.9 crore in 2019-20. Expenses, too, increased with expansion in its portfolio of locations and outlets. 

While Waffle Wallah serves a range of sweet and savoury waffles, Bombay Toastee serve wholesome comfort food in a street-style yet hygienic environment and Biryani Battuta serves delectable biryanis.

Guiltfree Industries Limited (“GIL”), which is engaged in the business of fast moving consumer goods under the brand name “Too Yumm!”. Additionally, GIL has acquired a stake of 70% of the equity share capital of Apricot Food Private Limited, another company engaged in the manufacturing of food products.

Too Yumm!!

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Year 2016 – This was when the RP-Sanjiv Goenka group envisioned a foray into the FMCG Business. RP-SG FMCG’s strategic intent is to innovate disruptively and create brands and products, that are genuine and desirable to the consumer.

RPSG Ventures Ltd ventured into the Foods business with one intent – offer healthier and guilt-free snacking options which consumers can have anytime, anywhere, as much. This resulted in the incorporation of our FMCG firm – Guiltfree Industries Limited (GIL) – in January 2017. 

Since its inception, GIL has been growing at a break-neck pace, beating industry records. Within just a year, ‘Too Yumm!’ achieved an annual Sales Rate of INR 200 Cr. by growing at 15-20% MoM – one of the fastest in the country to do so. By FY1819, ‘Too Yumm!’ is all set to become a INR 600 Cr. brand with its distribution across India and beyond

Later RPSG Ventures in order to fuel growth inorganically acquired Apricot Foods – a mass-market snack company based in Gujarat. Apricot’s brand ‘eVita’ is already clocking INR 200 Cr. revenues and is poised to grow bigger.

EVITA

• Manufacture and sale of Packaged snack food under the brand name of “e-vita”.
• Giving tough competition to bigger brands like Lays and Balaji in e-Vita’s stronghold like interior regions of Gujarat and Rajasthan.
• Lines and Range- Strong In-house R&D, in-house flavours and seasoning studies , leading to innovative product range.
• Manufacturing capacity: Rajkot(current): 20000 TPA, Hyderabad: 5000 TPA, Bhiwadi: 4000 TPA, Kanpur: 4000 TPA.
• Expansion: Rajkot: 9000 TPA, Planning third party contract manufacturing for East Zone.
• Wide range of product like traditional Indian namkeens, potato chips, fried extruded snacks, Fryums, cheese balls, popcorn, Khakra and sev-45 products, 75 varieties.
• Pricing: 95% revenue from sale of small packets (28-35g) of Rs 5 each.

Further RPSG Ventures had Plan to Expand to 10+ States by Mar 2020 and to increase its reach to 2,30,000 retail outlets, through 712 dealers – plan to expand 3x of the current reach.

By following organic & inorganic growth trajectories, RP-SG FMCG is all set to venture into other FMCG categories, create a portfolio of brands that are disruptive & genuine and achieve a revenue of INR 10,000 Cr. within 5 years.

Peel-Works

Mumbai based software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup Peel-Works, which operates business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce platform Taikee, has raised $2.8 million (around Rs 21 crore) in a growth round from CESC Ventures, the investment arm of Sanjiv Goenka-led energy company CESC. Thus  it had acquired 8.49 per cent stake in Mumbai-based Peel–Works Private Ltd

Peel-Works is a tech and data analytics company specializing in e-commerce for corner stores. Its products offered include Taikee, Insights, PoS by Mojo, and 1SF.

Taikee is a business-to-business e-commerce platform largely focused on the grocery segment. It allows offline grocery sellers to discover inventory prices and new brands in real time from the wholesale market. The company believes stores can improve sales and profitability margins through better access to pricing and demand forecasting using data.

Taikee will also use money from the current round to expand into new markets. It plans to expand to 25 cities and on-board 100,000 retailers over the next six to 12 months

On March 12, the company issued 4,134 Series D1 preference shares at Rs 50,766 per share to CESC Ventures, as per the latest regulatory filings.

What can RPSG Ventures Offer in terms of UserBase?

RPSG Ventures

RPSG Ventures fund is an early stage consumer VC Fund focused on investing in the B2C ecosystem including food & beverage, personal care and lifestyle goods. Established in 2018, RPSG Ventures works to be the value-adding ally of exceptional entrepreneurs looking to transform the Indian consumer landscape.

The Fund is backed by the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group as its sponsor investor, a leading conglomerate with multi-vertical interests across consumer, energy, chemicals, entertainment, and technology.

In addition to capital, RPSG Ventures leverages network and resource capabilities of the Group to generate accelerated growth for investee companies.

Consumer Brands – : B2C models both online and offline

Consumer Enablers -: B2B including Consumer Tech & Intermediaries

Funding Stages

Seed , Series A , Series B

Investments/Portfolio

mCaffeine

MCaffeine is a personal care brand that offers caffein-infused face, body, and hair care products.

Its personal care product portfolio includes shampoos, face washes, shower gels, body lotions, and face masks, which use caffeine as a major ingredient. MCaffeine won Nykaa Femina Beauty Awards 2020 for the best Coffee body scrub.

It was founded byVikas Lachhwani and Tarun Sharma in 2015 and based in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

mCaffeine, India’s first caffeinated personal care brand, which has led the coffee revolution in the personal care space since 2016, launches India’s very first “COFFEE BEAN” shaped bathing bars. With these unique array of caffeine based soaps, mCaffeine is set to revolutionise the personal care space by entering the beauty soap market in India. The PETA-certified, extensive R&D based mCaffeine Coffee Bathing bars are well formulated and pH balanced.

mCaffeine Coffee Bathing bars with the tagline Bean Me Up!TMare here to excite the coffee lovers and bring to them the literal meaning of bathing in coffee. Keeping in mind the importance of visual and aromatic appeal, all Coffee Bathing Bars have been shaped as coffee beans infused with the breath-taking aroma of fresh coffee, in order to deliver an elevated bathing experience and will add more to the entire bathing routine. The product series will feature three distinct Coffee Bathing Bars, namely – Espresso, Cappuccino, and Latte. Apart from the main ingredient of Pure Arabica Coffee, which is known for its cleansing and toning properties, the Coffee Bathing Bars also contain other ingredients such as pure coffee oil (in Espresso), almond milk and caramel (in Cappuccino), and cocoa butter (in Latte) which are essential for a healthy, lustrous, moisturized, and nourished skin

Pep Technologies Pvt. Ltd., which owns mCaffeine, India’s first Caffeine Infused Skin and Hair Care Brand has raised INR 42 cr.

The Souled Store

The Souled Store is a home-grown, pop culture merchandise brand created in 2013 with the philosophy of following your soul. It owns over 100 international and Indian licenses including Disney, Warner Brothers, WWE, stand-up comedians, Bollywood movies, amongst others.

The Souled Store, with over a lakh orders a month and an average basket size of Rs 800, had been clocking steady growth of close to 2x to 3x each year since 2014. 

In November 2018, venture capital firm RP-SG Ventures Ltd invested ₹21 crore ($3 million) in The Souled Store. It remains the only investor in the start-up.

Going Ahead The Souled Store will re-focus on offline store expansion. The original plan was to add 40 stores, primarily across tier-I and II cities including NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Chennai. However, the pandemic forced the company to put such plans on hold for the time being.

ShopG

ShopG, a social e-commerce platform has raised $1.5 million seed round from Orios Venture Partners and RPSG Ventures.

ShopG is solving the problem of next 200mn Bhaarat internet users to bring them to mainstream digital commerce. Founded by seasoned startup professionals Abhishek, Ankur, Pranay, and Yogesh, ShopG leverages group buying behaviour and help users cross the trust barrier to start their online purchase.

Today, ShopG has more than 1000 community leaders serving over lakh customers in a single Tier III city and the business has proven profitability in the city.

As per the Ankur Arora & Abhishek Mishra, co-founders, ShopG , “Next 500 million internet customers from Tier III and IV cities of India, who earn an average household income of Rs 25,000-30,000 per month, prefer assisted buying from someone they trust and have low Average Order Values (AOV) of less than Rs 250; making it impossible for existing E-commerce 1.0 players like Amazon, Flipkart etc to service them with high customer acquisition, and supply chain costs”.

ShopG’s business model offers a unique way of servicing the low AOV Tier III and IV customers with industry-leading customer acquisition cost and logistics cost.

IncNut

IncNut, which houses brands like SkinKraft and Vedix, will be using the fresh funds to strengthen and expand its R&D labs, and improve its AI-driven technology.

Hyderbad-based ecommerce startup IncNut Digital announced that it has raised $4 million in its Series A round. The round was led by RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group backed early-stage consumer centric venture capital fund, RPSG Ventures.

Earlier, in 2013, IncNut raised Rs 50 lakh in seed round from Venture East. IncNut’s home-brand, SkinKraft, started online retailing in mid-2018, providing customised skin-care regime for Indian women.

Beauty and wellness company Vedix, has now ventured into skin care after haircare products. The company has launched a skincare regimen formulated by doctors with time-tested natural ingredients.

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With this launch, the company aims to provide customised ayurvedic skincare experience with the amalgamation of technology and deep-rooted benefits of ancient Ayurveda.

Vedix is India’s first and only customized Ayurvedic hair care regime. The various hair care products of Vedix are designed to address the unique problems of your hair. All the customized hair-care products sold at Vedix are formulated by a professional team of Ayurvedic doctors. 

Personalised beauty care provides a unique way of engaging with customers. SkinKraft and Vedix have been successful in building, scaling, and sustaining a content-to-commerce community

Founded in 2011 by Chaitanya Nallan, Sangram Simha and Veerendra Shivhare, IncNut owns and operates two women-centric digital media platforms — Stylecraze.com and Momjunction.com, as well.

Dr. Vaidya’s – Herbolab India Pvt Ltd

 CESC Ventures, a part of RPSG Group, acquired a majority stake in Herbolab India Pvt Ltd, makers of ayurvedic medicines and products under the ‘Dr Vaidya’s’ brand. The acquisition marks the Group’s foray into the ayurvedic medicines and products category

Herbolab India, which manufactures Ayurvedic medicines and products under the Dr. Vaidya’s brand name. It gave the acquirer immediate access to around 60 Ayurvedic products and a total portfolio of over 150 items.

During the year ended march 20, total income (including other income) grew seven-times from ` 2 crore in 2018-19 to ` 16.3 crore in 2019-20. In recognition of its achievements, Herbolab was awarded ‘Amazon Youth SMB of the Year 2020’ and was runner-up at the Retail Association of India award for ‘Retail Startup of the Year 2020’. It also featured in the ‘Top 25 Growing Indian Startups – 2020’ by Talent Stack. 

Pune-based HW Wellness Solutions Pvt. Ltd, which owns and operates health foods startup True Elements, has raised Rs 5 crore ($788,500) in a pre-Series A funding round led by the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group.

True Elements offers a range of snacks and natural supplements through its website and other online marketplaces. The company also operates a wellness solutions portal under the brand name HealthyWorld.in, which offers health advisory content besides marketing and selling health and wellness products and services on the platform.

In January 2018, the firm raised 5 crores (around $788,500) in a pre-Series A funding round led by the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group.

With a rich heritage, RPSG Group today is one of the most revered business conglomerates of India. With the RP-Sanjiv Goenka group itself scaling new heights, with annual revenues of INR 23,000 Cr.+ and assets close to INR 41,000 Cr.; we know that an extraordinary journey has just begun.

Blackbuck CEO Rajesh Yabaji, former TaxiForSure CEO Raghunandan G, and former Flipkart, Alibaba executive Prasanth Nair also participated in the round.

Financials

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• Revenue from operations was stable at ` 63.9 crore. Thanks largely to a significant dividend income from its subsidiary, Firstsource Solutions Limited, total income increased by 88% to ` 234.1 crore.
• Profit before taxes (PBT) grew by 137% to ` 175.8 crore.
• Profit after taxes (PAT) increased by 165% to ` 174.3 crore.
• Diluted earnings per share (EPS) went up from ` 24.8 in 2018-19 to ` 65.7 in 2019-20.

The consolidated financial results for your Company in 2019-20 were: 

• Revenue from operations was Rs 4,578.4 crore and total income was Rs 4,613.2 crore. 
• PBT was Rs 185 crore. 
• PAT was Rs 147.1 crore. 

CESC Ventures Limited — Key Businesses and Operating Entities 

CESC Ventures’ core business operations as a standalone entity consists of information technology (IT) services, which are currently being provided mainly to certain Group companies operating in the power sector. Its key subsidiaries include: 

Conclusion

With a rich heritage, RPSG Group today is one of the most revered business conglomerates of India. With the RP-Sanjiv Goenka group itself scaling new heights, with annual revenues of INR 23,000 Cr.+ and assets close to INR 41,000 Cr.; we can guess that an extraordinary journey has just begun. CESC Ventures also leverages emerging opportunities in India through incubation of new businesses and investments in venture capital funds. Investing in startups is extemely risky howver the risk and rewards are huge. RPSG Ventures is agressively investing across lot of startups which are focussed on Consumer Business and if the valuation sustains or the startups achieve even slightest of the growth it can create huge wealth. As debt levels are elevated , it still is a concern but going forward we expect that the investments made by RPSG can yield fruitful results which will not only fuel the growth for the coming period but it would also help management take care to the debt levels. At the current price of around 300Rs the stock is trading at Just 0.34 times the book value where the book value of the company is significanlty high which is Rs 879. Thus it is worth exploring for long term.

Please note that above expressed are our own views. Users are requested to take their own decision regarding investments. No member of DARKHORSESTOCKS would be responsible for any loss.