In this call today, we have Mr. Ashish Deora, the founder and CEO of Aurum Ventures, Mr. Onkar Shetye, Executive Director of Aurum PropTech, Mr. Kunal Karan, CFO of Aurum PropTech, and Mr. Hiren Ladva, CEO of Aurum WiseX. Today, we shall take you through our performance for the quarter and nine-month period ended December 2024, as well as our future outlook. Before we proceed, I would like to remind everyone that the forward-looking statements we may discuss are subject to risks and uncertainties that are detailed in our prospectus and the annual report. We encourage you to review these documents, which are available on our website, to fully understand the risks associated with any future projections or statements. We shall now start the call with Mr. Ashish Deora.
Thank you, Vanessa. Good evening, everyone. It's a privilege to welcome you to the 15th earnings call of Aurum PropTech, as we reflect on another quarter of consistent growth and relentless execution. Q3 FY 2025 has been once again about staying true to our purpose of creating an integrated PropTech ecosystem while delivering consistent, sustainable growth across all financial metrics. I'm excited to share that Aurum PropTech has continued its steady growth trajectory. We once again achieved an impressive 24% year-on-year growth. What makes this achievement even more remarkable is that it aligns with our efforts over the past seven quarters to improve profitability margins and focus on unit economics. This is also a validation of how all our stakeholders are adopting tech as a catalyst for change. The journey we embarked on to establish an integrated PropTech ecosystem is now gaining significant traction.
It is now our responsibility to deepen this connection with our stakeholders and lead the way in transforming the real estate landscape. Talking specifically about our three business segments, I would now like to start with the rentals. Within the rental business segment, we continue to meet the growing demand for organized rental housing through our platforms, HelloWorld and Nestaway. Strong occupancy rates and new offerings like Nestaway Lite have enabled us to cater to more tenants and property owners while maintaining healthy margins. Also, we are seeing a trend reversal with top IT firms resuming hiring, as indicated by the recent quarterly reports. This is a great positive for our co-living business, as it creates tremendous opportunity for us to expand supply and drive higher occupancy. Moving on to our distribution business segment, tech remains at the heart of our approach.
Developers are increasingly adopting tech solutions, recognizing the value of industry-specific AI solutions like our CRM platform, Sell.do, and our data analytics platform, Aurum Analytica. Talking about our capital business segment, we are excited about the transformative opportunities on the horizon. We are eagerly awaiting the SM REIT license, and we are on track to launch our first asset under this model in the coming quarters. This will be a path-breaking opportunity to redefine fractional ownership, bringing more accessibility and transparency to real estate investments. As we chart our path forward, we firmly believe it is time for our products and companies to shift to a mindset of hyper-growth. Having demonstrated the strength of our unit economics, we are confident of driving exponential growth through our businesses. In the initial quarters of Aurum PropTech's journey, we focused on acquisitions and proof of concept.
This was followed by a period of strong focus on unit economics and achieving profitability. With all profitability metrics showing consistent improvement, we should now aim for hyper-growth and market share expansion in the coming quarters. We are working with our business leaders to assess how they can double their product revenues while maintaining strong unit economics. Our roadmap for the next financial year is in place, ensuring that in each quarter, we focus on putting one product at a time onto a hyper-growth trajectory. We are excited about the opportunities ahead and will continue to deliver value to all our stakeholders. Thank you for your continued support. I will hand over to Onkar for further details.
Thank you, Mr. Deora. I'm thrilled to share that Aurum PropTech has continued its steady growth trajectory for the nine-month period ending December 31, 2024. This quarter was about relentless focus on execution and unit economics. We achieved an impressive 24% year-on-year growth with consistent improvement across all profitability metrics. Within the rental business segment, we continue to build on the momentum from previous quarters. Revenue was up 28% year-on-year for the nine-month period ending December 31, 2024. We now cover 33,500 rental units under management between co-living, student living, and family rentals across 200-plus micro markets in the country. The blended occupancy was at 75%, with young professionals driving maximum demand. Notably, Nestaway, India's largest rental marketplace platform, achieved sustained year-on-year growth for the period. Key contributors for revenue growth were improved customer experience. Nestaway ratings now improved to 4.3 out of 5.
New revenue streams, including Nestaway Lite, continue to enhance wallet share and allow us to serve a broader customer base. Continued focus on portfolio management approach, flat organizational structure, and automation of tasks with technology help control costs and unit economics. The demand for organized rental accommodations is too broad for rental units across the country, and we believe we are well-positioned to bridge this large gap with efficient, scalable, and customer-centric technology. Building on the strong performance of our rental business segment, we've also made significant strides in our distribution business segment, where technology remains at the heart of our approach. The restructured distribution business, SaaS services and non-core businesses, demonstrated a 55% year-on-year growth for the period. This came at a significant net margin of 18%, a validation of our commitment to profitable growth with strong control on unit economics and focus on technology at scale.
The data analytics business was a key driver, with 89% year-on-year growth in revenue. This was majorly fueled by larger account penetration and high retention rates across existing accounts. Additionally, new accounts also saw growth in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities as well. Analytica, centrally operated from NCR, now serves 300-plus micro markets across the country with its data lake. There was also an impressive cost reduction in our sales automation business, Sell.do. This was majorly done with an increase in account penetration, customer wallet share, and also better control on automation of tasks. Moving to our capital segment, we continued our consultation with SEBI on SM REIT application and are fine-tuning our go-to-market in anticipation of the license, which is set to unlock a 50,000 crore AUM SM REITable supply across the country. We shall continue to build our integrated PropTech ecosystem for scale and customer-centricity.
I will now hand over to Mr. Kunal Karan, CFO of Aurum PropTech, to take us through the financial results.
Thank you, Onkar. Thank you, everyone, for joining the call. I will quickly take you through the consolidated results for the quarter and nine-month period ended December 31, 2024. First, the results for the quarter. The revenue from operations: INR 64.58 crore. Total income: INR 70.23 crores. Loss before tax: INR 9.63 crores compared to INR 12.1 crores in the previous quarter, an improvement of 414 basis points in terms of PBT to total income. The EBITDA for the quarter: 24.7% compared to 21.5% in the previous quarter, improvement of 320 basis points. Now, the results for the nine-month period ended December 31, 2024. Revenue from operations: INR 193.43 crores. Total income: INR 206.94 crore. Loss before tax: INR 35.47 crores compared to INR 71.15 crores in the corresponding period previous year, an improvement of 2540 basis points in terms of PBT to total income. Now, the segment information.
For the quarter, rental revenue contributed 68% of the total revenue from operations at INR 43.98 crores. Revenue for distribution and capital segment were INR 17.85 crore and INR 2.75 crores, respectively. Rental and capital segment had a loss of INR 3.65 crores and INR 2.35 crores, respectively, while the distribution segment made a profit of INR 2.44 crores. For the nine-month period ended December 31, 2024, rental revenue contributed 64% of the total revenue from operations at INR 123.57 crore. Revenue for distribution and capital segment were INR 58.09 crore and INR 11.77 crores, respectively. Rental and capital segment had a loss of INR 9.01 crore and INR 5.73 crore, respectively, while the distribution segment made a profit of INR 5.12 crore. I will now hand over the call to Ashish Deora to take it forward. Thank you.
Should we begin the question and answer session, sir?
Yes, please.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, please click on the Raise Hand icon tab available on your toolbar or on the Q&A tab available on your screen. Kindly turn on your mic when the operator announces your name. You may post your text questions as well. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We'll take a first question from Mahuresh M., an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Do you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Yes, we can. Okay, thank you for this opportunity, and I congratulate you for the great set of numbers. I also asked some questions during the last phone call, and some forecast was provided of 45% year-on-year growth in FY25 for the whole financial year and a further revenue of INR 300 crores until March 2025, which means there will be a revenue of INR 110 crores in the last quarter. Are we still confident of achieving this number?
Mahuresh, this is Ashish here. We have focused on unit economics as a metric. We heard from many of our investors to say that, "Look, that is very, very important and very critical as a public company." We have, over the last many quarters, in fact, last seven quarters, improved our profitability while maintaining a very steady growth. So we are not really kind of, as of now, saying what is going to be the Q4 numbers. But yes, as I tried to address in my opening sort of remarks that we are now talking to each of the business leaders that we have in our ecosystem to say, "How can their companies, their products, we take in on a hyper-growth scale?" We are feeling very confident about that now with unit economics in place.
So we believe that whatever growth we have shown over the last few quarters, the growth in the next few quarters will surpass that as a percentage, if that helps you.
Okay, so I could assume that the next quarter, the revenue would be at least INR 65 crores, as in similar to this quarter, at least. It may surpass, but we do not guarantee the number that you had provided last time of INR 300 crores for the whole year.
That is not what we are saying. But yeah, I mean, that is not what we are saying. But yes, Mahuresh, if you think that we will definitely surpass the current quarter revenue numbers, right? I mean, that is a.
No, I was talking about the target that was provided in the last phone call. Are we still confident of achieving it or considering the numbers are quite large that we need to cope up with for the last quarter?
Mahuresh, from an industry point of view, real estate being a very cyclical kind of business, Q4 numbers are typically better in all the four quarters. We will definitely aim to surpass, like you said, the base numbers of around INR 65 crores before, and while we look at Q4 more optimistically, while we have demonstrated a consistent base number, we will definitely look to surpass that in Q4.
Okay, thank you. Thank you. And any updates on the rights issue that was planned in Q4? Will it still be coming out in Q4?
Yes, we are looking to start the process in this quarter, in the Q4 quarter, and call for the rights money in the next few months. But the process will be started in this quarter, as we had committed earlier.
Perfect. Sounds good. About the depreciation, I see we have close to 20 crore depreciation in our books for this quarter and also for the last few quarters. Considering that we are an asset-light business and we don't own any assets ourselves, we rent them from the owner and then further rent them to individuals. May I know why do we have so much depreciation in the books?
Look, the depreciation that you see in the books is not for the assets that we carry on our own. The depreciation is for the assets that come to us as a right-of-use asset, which comes because of this HelloWorld, mostly because of the HelloWorld business, where it enters into long-term agreements with the landlords, and as the practice of the accounting requirement of the accounting standard, those assets need to be shown as an ROU asset. And out of, say, the total depreciation of INR 59 crore that you see for the nine months, around INR 42 crore comes on account of that. So that is not an asset, not a depreciation for asset that we carry. So definitely, that asset-light philosophy stands good for us.
But the asset is owned by the owner himself. So why do we have to put close to INR 59 crores of depreciation on our side?
So that is the requirement of the accounting standard. So when we enter a long-term lease agreement with the landlord, that time the standard requires us to show that asset as a right-of-use asset, and the cost of the asset gets depreciated. That is why it is shown over there.
Okay, okay. Understood.
There are two kinds of contracts: one is long-term contracts and other short-term contracts. Short-term contracts are where the contract expires within 12 months, and long-term where it is more than 12 months. Because our business requires us to have properties which we can keep under our control for a longer period, that is why we enter in a long-term contract.
Okay, okay. Thank you for the clarification. And regarding the occupancy of 75%, is it seasonal or is that the average occupancy throughout the year?
This is the average occupancy for the quarter. What is notable is that the occupancy of 75% is maintained despite the stress that the student living business went through in the city of Kota. If we take Kota out, the city of Kota, which is majorly housing student living units, if we take that out, the average occupancy actually goes up to 85%. So that's been the strength of business coming in from young professionals who are working in micro markets like Bangalore, Pune, NCR, which is also a large market for us, and Hyderabad.
Understood, understood. And last question from my side. About the units, we had a target of around 50,000 units until the end of FY26. Are we still confident of achieving it?
Yes. So we are at 33,500 rental units under management as of now. We would definitely look to scale it up to 50,000 units under management in the midterm, like you said. And in fact, our aspirations are quite larger. We would like to, in the longer term, scale it up to 1 lakh rental units under management, between all three quarters: student living, co-living, and also the family rental unit.
Yes, I noticed 1,500 units were added in this quarter. And I think if we keep going in the same pace, increasing the number of units incrementally, this target is possible. Sorry, this is the last one. The REIT license, any news if we could get it this quarter, or it still depends on SEBI to take that call?
Hi, this is Hiren here. Yes, I mean, you gave two answers. Both of them are correct.
Yes, it depends.
It does definitely depend on SEBI, but SEBI has its own process of going through the applications. There was an industry-wide discussion also happening in the previous quarter because of which the existing players' registration is most likely to get approved in this particular quarter for all of us.
So there is nothing pending from our side. Maybe it's just a question: is it totally on SEBI's side, or are they waiting for some information from our side to process the file?
So this is an iterative process. So as of now, as we speak, we have submitted our information that was required by SEBI. We are awaiting their response. If no further queries, then it should be the last leg. But again, can't comment on what exactly SEBI can come back with. Just to add to Hiren, I think the conversation with SEBI has been so transparent and so sort of forward-looking. It's really very, very heartwarming, right? Despite being the regulator, despite they're trying to do something new, democratize the real estate investments, they have been very, very forward-looking, and our compliments to them.
That's great.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for clarifying all my questions, and good luck.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Yash Garg and shareholder. Please go ahead. Mr. Yash Garg, you're on talk mode now. Please go ahead.
Yes, yes, yes. As we are hearing about the market stagnation throughout the Indian stock market, how companies like yours, which is operating in a niche sector like PropTech, look to excel given the challenges and opportunities created by growth of AI? And also, do you consider making a D2C platform like Housing.com or Magicbricks?
I'll answer the later part first. We already have India's largest C2C platform, Nestaway, which deals on the rental management side. What we are going to definitely, we are definitely doing a POC on how do we also tap onto the resale market that comes by the virtue of our visibility in the rental units. And as we are aware that the rental or the resale market is much larger than the primary sale market in India. And the opportunity to disrupt that from a consolidation standpoint, from a technology standpoint, from a customer experience standpoint, is immense. Nestaway is where we are going to bank onto the C2C offering. Coming to your question on utilization of AI, we feel AI and all the new AI practices are more of an enabler. And we have a clear three-prong strategy there.
It's the first, how do we use AI to increase our top line by increasing volume share of customers and consumers? Number two, how do we increase our bottom line by increasing the efficiency of our team structures, organizational structures, automation of tasks? And number three, how do we run new business models? Like we spoke about the C2C model for resale on a Nestaway platform that comes by the virtue of AI, where we are able to understand the rental yield of a certain rental apartment under management and offer it to consumers on a prompt basis to sell and for the owners to resell. I hope we've been able to.
Yeah, thank you, sir.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please click on the raise an icon tab available on your toolbar. We'll take a text question from Mitesh Jain from Impex International. So many companies have received the SM REIT license, but our license is still pending. Is there any particular issue? What's the likely time by when we can get the same?
Hiren here again. I think we have answered this question already. In terms of the timelines, expectations, and discussions with SEBI, you've already covered that.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Vidit Shah from Spark PWM. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my question. My first question was on the profitability of the rental business. We've seen the losses gradually come down over the last four quarters. We've seen a very sharp increase in the loss at the segmental level results from INR 1.2 crores to INR 3.7 crores. So could you please help us understand what has caused this? Is there a one-off? And how do we see the profitability of this business given Ashish Ji's focus on unit economics that he spoke about?
Vidith, your voice was quite muffled, but we could quickly decipher some parts of your question, and we'll probably elaborate it later, but from an understanding standpoint, your question was on the profitability of the rental business. We feel that the rental business is still in the, I would say, at an inflection point from a scale-up standpoint. We are between HelloWorld and Nestaway at 33,500 rental units under management, and to reach an ideal state in the micro markets that we operate, I would say, in depth, which is five key micro markets, we'll still take some time to reach that ideal state from a supply standpoint, from portfolio management teams that are managing that supply standpoint, and from the demand that we end up generating on a continuum basis in that micro market standpoint.
Once that is in effect, then I think the network effect for each micro market will drive profitability at that scale. We feel that that scale should be at 50,000 rental units under management. Of course, those 50,000 rental units will not be concentrated in five micro markets, but we will have 70% of the micro markets, which will have an idea, sorry, 60% of the micro markets will be at ideal state, and balance will be in the scale-up position at that stage.
Hi, is my voice better now, or is it still not?
It is that better. Yes, Vidith.
Sure. So, okay, let me just, am I audible now?
It's better.
Okay.
It's still echoing.
Yeah, Vidith, I'm getting an echo. Vidith, I'm sorry to interrupt. I'm getting an echo from your line.
Okay. I hope this is better now.
Slightly better. You can go ahead.
Okay, so my question was around, is 50,000 units a break-even level, or do we become reasonably profitable after that? And two, I just wanted to understand this particular quarter, what has led to the increase in losses.
So I'll start with the later part. For the quarter, the rental segment has operated at an INR 9 crore loss for—sorry, sorry, sorry, let me just correct myself. For the nine-month period ended December 31st, 2024, the rental segment operated at an INR 9 crore loss, which we feel will have consistently sort of declined and will continue to improve this. The 50,000 rental units under management, like I said, we'll have 60% of them at an ideal state, which will have micro markets that are operating at a break-even. There will be certain micro markets which we would want to scale. So tier one cities once in control, tier two cities we will focus on when we want to scale. And that's where we will probably need to sort of look at certain—I would say losses.
Okay. I missed it. And just one last question on the SM REIT license. Once it is given to us this quarter, what is the strategy going forward? How easily can we scale up the AUM year-on-year? What is the target AUM that we're seeing over the next two, three years?
Hi, Vidith. This is Hiren here. So once we receive the license, or rather before that, we've already started working on our go-to-market strategy around that. Won't go too much in detail, but broadly, we are looking at Grade A commercial assets to launch them to start with. By definition and by regulation, already the size of the assets are more or less defined in terms of the AUM size per scheme. But from a growth aspirations point of view, in the next two to three years, we would be looking to scale up to an AUM of around INR 2,000-odd crores to start with. And then we'll look to see, based on how the acceptance of the product is in the market, how quickly are we able to take the schemes to the market. And based on that, we'll recalibrate our long-term aspirations.
Okay. And what channels are we looking to scale up this AUM via? I mean, what's our marketing strategy there? Are we signing up with certain wealth managers, or are we?
You're not very clear, Vidith. I'm sorry to interrupt. This is the operator here.
So I think there's a problem with my line. I'll just get back into it. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take a text question from Vimlade Gurpal. The question is, "Hi, I want to know the reason why the company is not calling for the rights issue money from the investors, as the same will help the company to grow its business.
So this is something that is as a roadmap we had decided in the very beginning of the rights issue. And that is why the rights issue was sort of done in a manner that it was supposed to be called in three tranches. We have done the first two tranches, and now the third tranche is expected to be done in the current to upcoming quarter. Having said that, I think the company didn't require as much capital till now. Or actually, in fact, it doesn't even require as much capital as we are raising with the rights issue because, as you have seen, the losses kind of coming down substantially over the last seven quarters. So it's not that we didn't call the cost of growth. It was just not required. Having said that, I think rights issue final tranche will be called in this quarter.
Thank you. The next question is from Ritesh Shah, an investor. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. I wanted to check what are some of the benefits that we are seeing from the ecosystem of all the entire PropTech companies coming together as Aurum PropTech is the only company which has such an ecosystem. So just wanted to see if we are seeing some benefits of the collaborative nature of it.
So there are actually immense benefits that we get operating as an ecosystem together, and I'll just give you a couple of examples to give you some color on it. What we spoke about using AI to generate new business models on existing businesses. So for example, there are opportunities that come in where the HelloWorld co-living business, which has got a good visibility on rental yields of co-living assets, which are typically buildings, housing, student living, and co-living apartments, go very adjacent to a business of SM REIT or a C2C, right, where there's a rent-building asset that can be put onto that platform. So that's one instance, for example. The second instance, for example, is how the Analytica and the Sell.do business, which both operate in the enterprise segment, have got good visibility on projects in launch phase on the enterprise side.
At an ABM level, it definitely helps for them to go to market. Also, they're able to work in tandem with each other. If you see the project lifecycle of a primary sale, post-sale of a building, the consumer communication and the post-sale process needs to be managed with cadence. Post-Aurum Analytica's work of data analytics and lead gen is done for that project. It is backed up by Sell.do's business, which takes care of the entire post-sales business of it. Assume in the same building, once the entire lifecycle of handover is complete, tenants start coming in, moving in, Nestaway becomes active and starts reselling or managing those rental units under management. That is where the true benefits of the network effect of the entire enterprise and consumer tech suite also come.
So as we go quarter to quarter, we have been doing POCs on each of these consortiums in micro markets that we feel are prominently good for these cases.
Mr. Jain? Sorry, Mr. Ritesh Shah? Does that answer your question?
Yes, yes. That answered my question. Thanks.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Rahul Jain from Dolat Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Hope my line is audible?
Yes, Rahul. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thanks for the opportunity. One question on this HelloWorld business, specifically about the Kota city. Based on the info that you have shared, it seems the utility continues to be pretty low.
I'm sorry, your voice is breaking.
You could share.
Rahul? Can you just repeat your question, please?
Yeah. Hi. Is it any better? Yes.
Yes. Go ahead.
Yeah. So my question was about HelloWorld business and the Kota city specific question that it seems the utilization here is pretty low. So if you could share the contribution of the city to the business and how we plan to mitigate the weak demand situation in that market.
So I'll answer this in two parts. One, I would say on the supply side, we have some 10% of the entire rental units under management spread in Kota, which is around 3,000-3,500 odd beds. To be specific, it's around 3,200 odd beds in Kota. The occupancy witnessed in this season with the present challenges is in the range of 57%-60% in the city. So that is where the concern lies. Whereas just to underline or just to point out, in a good market, the city was operating at an 85% kind of an occupancy. This is last year, same season. So we will be optimistic on the city coming back to its previous quarters because we feel that student living as a business has got immense opportunity with around 40 lakh odd students looking to stay in co-living apartments or student living apartments.
What have we done from a mitigation point of view? The teams that were managing or that were required to manage a capacity of 75% occupancy in these cities have been moved to adjacent cities in the same, I would say, adjacent to these micro markets. So for example, 60% of the team has, sorry, 30% of the team has been moved to Indore, which is now, which is operating at a 77% kind of an occupancy. And that is how we were able to control the damage on costs and operations that was emerging out of this, I would say, seasonal, but this macro challenge.
Right. And one more question on the light version of Nestaway. So we are seeing significant growth in this particular subsegment. So is it any specific differentiation that we have in terms of operating metrics in this business? I assume, of course, the per-unit rental would be lower, but in terms of commission rate or average tenure of occupancy, is this a better business or slightly lower profile business compared to the usual Nestaway customer?
Nestaway Lite is a byproduct of our data analytics MIS that came in, where we saw that there was a lot of supply that was coming in as requests which wanted to only do the rental transaction bit, which means the supply-demand meet transacting for that rental property and then moving on. At least for that one year, they do not take any property management services that Nestaway's team would want to add to their service partner network. That is where Nestaway Lite was born out of, where we latched on to that supply and did the transaction model where a rental transaction is facilitated and the teams move on, whereas the relationship with the property owner still remains with us and is then serviced for the next turn of the demand or the next turn of the tenancy.
Rahul, I hope we've been able to answer your question.
Yes, yes. That's pretty helpful. And just last question from my side, if you could share any bit on Aurum Analytica in terms of how the metrics are shaping up in terms of customer addition or lead value or transaction efficiency, any color on that would be helpful. Thank you.
Yes, definitely. I think Aurum Analytica is a very interesting business to us. From the time we added it onto our portfolio to now, it has been one star performer. The model is similar to the 99acres and the Housing.coms of the world, where they are in the lead sale business for primary real estate projects. What is different in their approach is that they use data analytics to sell the leads. Now, as a metric, Aurum Analytica has grown in number of projects this year from, I would say, Q1 to Q3 by almost 100%. We started the year at around 80 real estate accounts where our services or developers, rather, where our services were offered. And now we have almost doubled it in Q3.
We are operating in more than 250 micro markets, which means those many number of locations are enriching our data lake and allowing us to offer more services in these. Cumulatively, we have in this year being able to sell close to 200,000 leads for the projects that we are sort of servicing. I would also like to point out that we've been able to also do two successful projects outside India with the model, specifically in Maldives, where with a large real estate enterprise, one of the top, which comes in the top five enterprises in the country, we were able to help them monetize their residential real estate project, a luxury one in Maldives, and we've got repeat business for that micro market, and now we are looking to also add some adjacent projects in that micro market.
Rahul, does that answer your question?
Yes, I'm good. Thank you. That's it.
Thank you. We'll take a text question from Shubham Dilawari from Value Research. Could you please outline the company's strategic focus in the coming years? Will it be more towards driving profitability or focusing on growth? If profitability is the priority, when do you expect the company to break even or reach a sustainable profit margin?
I think the way we have built this so far is we have tried to balance between profitability and growth. And I think as an overarching principle, we will continue to do so. However, we are seeing some of the products and their potential, which can be grown exponentially over the next one or two years. And we want to kind of allocate capital. We want to allocate more management bandwidth to these businesses and ensure that they do justice and get their required and desired revenue market share. So this is something that is a balance throughout the day, throughout the quarter, and I think we'll continue to do so.
Thank you. We have one more text question from Vimlesh Agrawal. Thank you very much for the answer. My suggestion is that the company should make expense in out-of-home advertising so as to gain more visibility among public, and this will help in acquiring the clients which are not aware about Aurum business.
Thank you for the suggestion, Shubhamji. We will definitely consider this. And thank you for participating in our sort of conducive observations. One thing that we always try to point out is that we have always had a digital-first approach. The majority of our spend on advertising goes on to direct digital marketing, which is basically taking the brand or project or the product directly to the consumer's handheld or desktop-based digital device, which is a mobile or a laptop, where most of the time share from a transaction, from a discovery standpoint, happens. Outdoor advertising or out-of-home advertising will give us definite brand visibility, and we will keep that in mind. We have done these exercises for the Nestaway business, which is largely C2C and does require that brand-first approach, and we have done that for business. We will definitely consider this in the future.
To add to what Onkar is saying, as a company, as Aurum, we have always been product and customer-centric rather than promotion-centric. We believe that it takes longer for people to then identify and find you, but then your customers are long-term customers because they see more value in you. As a philosophy, we have built businesses over the last three decades with product and customer-centricity rather than promotion-centricity, but thank you for your suggestion.
Thank you. We'll take our next text question from Amit Agicha from Edgee Hawaiian Company. What is the current status of the SM REIT applications with SEBI, and when do you anticipate approvals? Could you share details about investor interest and funds raised under SM REIT so far? With EBITDA and profitability improving, when can we expect the company to turn net positive on earnings?
The first part of the question has already been covered. This is Hiren. Yeah. Maybe on the EBITDA profitability part also.
On the EBITDA, we have now for the last few quarters, we have started kind of declaring our ESOP-adjusted EBITDA. And that has constantly improved to a point where it is now -2.4%, which means on a INR 70 crore revenue, it is INR 1.8 crore, approximately INR 1.7 crore, not even INR 1.8 crore. So in three months, INR 1.8 crore is not really a big sort of number for us to control if we have to. But the key also is to continue to grow at a 20-odd%, at least on a six-monthly basis. So while the profitability has been changing, while the profitability has been improving throughout, and we believe that we can turn the company net positive literally at any point of time because of the way we have kind of brought down the profitability, brought down the losses in the company.
Thank you. We have a text question from Shivang B from Emkay. A clarification, you said Kota occupancy decreased to 60% this quarter compared to 85% in Q3 FY24. Is that right? If yes, what exactly changed?
So yes, that's correct. Kota has been majorly hit this year. What has changed this year has been a certain negative, I would say, perception built over the last few quarters on these coaching institutes and coaching centers and the gruel that students typically go through. There were very unfortunate suicides happening in some micro markets across the country with pressures mounting on delivering results for students. New regulations also, which were brought in, I think, earlier or Q4 last year from the central policymaking bodies, also impacted certain curriculums and confusions or perceptual confusions because of certain reasons. These two or three things have actually contributed to some headwinds in this business, but we feel that there are corrective actions that are taken at all levels, including specifically for student suicides. There's an immense level of public awareness campaigns that are happening by institutions.
We've also done our bit in this area. Parents are getting educated about what does need to be done as a proactive prohibitive measure. And on the policymaking also, the policymaking bodies are being more proactive in, I would say, bringing out clarification that at times are very helpful for parents and alumni to understand their curriculum and so on.
Thank you.
Just to add to what Onkar said on this point, from our foundation, Aurum Foundation, also we are trying to work with the stakeholders of Kota just so that if there is any kind of contribution we could do in terms of education, in terms of bringing this issue to the forefront. This has nothing to do with our profitability metrics, but this we wanted to do since it's a very, very strong cause that we can associate ourselves with.
Thank you. We'll take a text question from Sejal Ajmera from CrispIdea. Which location do you see in next year to leverage your rental business and why?
So next year, we feel that NCR, which has built a good momentum over the last two quarters, will continue to deliver results for both the co-living and the rental business alike. And this is primarily coming in from, I would say, not just startups, but a lot of IT companies also shifting bases, looking at NCR as a good talent pool market. NCR offers a larger micro market pool for talent coming in from the Northern India region, and that has attracted a lot of IT companies to go and set base there.
The other regions that we feel will continue to sort of give good results is Bangalore, which is backed by an uptick in the GCC micro market, the GCC industry, which is largely the global capability centers of large enterprises, large IT companies that are setting base in Bangalore and other regions will drive more people to come and work here and also avail the co-living and the family rental facilities. So primarily, these two micro markets are where we see the larger demand coming in. The other micro markets are also quite promising and will continue to grow at the same trajectory that we've been witnessing. The limitation here is not the TAM. The limitation here is how many micro markets can you really service profitably?
That is why we'll probably add a few micro markets, and we will keep going more deeper into the micro markets that we are already present. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from Maitreyi Shah. Any guidance, CAGR, for the next two to three years and the company turning to net profitable? Can that happen by next fiscal year?
Thanks, Vishalji. Sorry, Maitriji. Questions like these always keep us on toes and up and away and make sure that we have continued focus on delivering numbers. We have grown consistently. So if you look at FY23, 24, and now, I think we've delivered a 30% kind of a CAGR in the last two years. While we go into the next year, I think in the next two years, with the existing businesses and also some inorganic nature of our strategy, we will look to double the revenue in the next two years.
Thank you. Give me a moment, please. This is next question from Shreyansh More. Any update regarding the call money?
So I think I'm hoping that the next call that we have, this question will no longer be required. So I think we have to work with that timeline, which we are already doing. There are many questions today on the rights issue, and we'll ensure that as we had committed in the last few quarters, the rights issue process would have started within the Q4, which is JFM 2025.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take that as a last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Vanessa Fernandes for closing comments. Over to you.
Thank you, Yashashri. Thank you, everyone, for taking the time out to join us on this call. We wholeheartedly appreciate your interest in Aurum PropTech, and we look forward to having you all in the next call again. Have a good evening ahead.
Thank you, members of the management team. On behalf of Aurum PropTech Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for your participation, and you may now exit the meeting. Thank you.