Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Q4 and FY 2026 earnings conference call of BlackBuck Limited hosted by [Raadhi] Capital. As a reminder, all attendees will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. If you have any questions, please feel free to press the raise hand button. We'll call you on in turn and unmute your line so you can speak. Important note: if you need to ask a question, please ensure Microsoft Teams has permission to access your microphone when you log in, otherwise you'll not be able to unmute. Please note that this conference is being recorded. Kindly also note that the audio of the earnings call is a corporate material of BlackBuck Limited and cannot be copied, rebroadcasted or attributed in the PR media without specific and written consent of the company.
Please note that anything said on this call that reflects the outlook towards the future, which can be construed as a forward-looking statement, must be reviewed in conjunction with the risk that the company faces. A copy of the disclosure is available on the investor relations section of the website as well as on the stock exchanges. To give you an in-depth understanding of the company and answer all your queries, we have from the management side today, Mr. Rajesh Kumar Naidu Yabaji, Chairman, Managing Director and CEO, and Mr. Satyakam, Chief Financial Officer. I now hand over the conference to Mr. Rajesh for his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you.
Thanks, Vineeta. Are you able to hear me? Is it clear?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Cool. Thanks, Vineeta. Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. Welcome to our earnings call of the financial year 2025, 2026 end and for the Q4 of FY 2026. You know, as in every earnings call, just, you know, re-articulating what we're trying to build at BlackBuck. BlackBuck was founded about 11 years back to solve the trucking problem of the country. Any space you pick up within trucking has massive opportunities, massive inefficiencies because of the fragmented nature of the space. Application and use of technology, there are possibilities to lift it out and put it in an orbit where a new world of trucking for India could be imagined. That is how the whole journey of BlackBuck started. We have toyed around with a lot of experiments in this space.
You know, as we speak, like the BlackBuck's definition today is nothing but all the experiments, all the successes we've got over the last 11 years, which has, you know, taught us a lot. We've learned a lot. What has become is the largest digital platform for truckers in the country. We have close to about 8.5 lakh monthly transacting customers on an average across the whole financial year, which roughly represents at a India level in excess of 25%-30% of Indian truckers using this platform. They use this platform very deeply because the platform we have built has so many use cases solving for the trucker that he ends up spending 45 minutes on our platform, our mobile app, BlackBuck, daily.
Because of the nature of the business, nature of the customers we have, we've got a very strong offline presence, having over 10,000 touch points on the ground through which we service, through which we acquire and retain our customers. That's the, you know, crux of what BlackBuck is and what we've built. Diving into a summary of numbers of last financial year. On a gross income level, we've done close to about INR 715 crore in total income, which is growth of about 55% on a year-on-year basis. On a EBITDA basis, we have done close to INR 167 crore, which is a 80% growth on a year-on-year basis. This is our first full year of profitability at a PAT level. We have done INR 160 crore in PAT in the full year financial FY 2025, FY 2026.
Not only the financial numbers, we continue to compound on our operating metrics, which are the top of the funnel metrics for our revenues to grow and compound. We grew in our transacting customers by 13% on a year-on-year basis to close to 8.2 lakh monthly transacting customers across the whole year. Users who use more than two services, who are our power users, we've compounded at 22% year-on-year. That's why you find the revenue to be compounding much stronger than the transacting customers because customers use more and more products, you know, on the platform. One of the leading metrics on payments vertical is tolling.
The GDV of tolling for us in the last full year grew at about 27% on a year-on-year basis in a very, you know, matured and penetrated industry, largely driven by a strong product play and a distribution play. Speaking about the core highlights of this growth, more talking about the recent quarter of FY 2026, the last quarter of Q4 FY 2026. Year-on-year growth on the Q4 2026 basis, we did about close to 52% on a year-on-year basis. If we split that into core and the newer businesses or the growth businesses, core businesses grew by about close to 30% on a year-on-year basis in the last quarter. On a full year, 34%.
This business obviously, you know, on the back of the, you know, the payments business, which is tolling business, grew at 27%, which we spoke about, in the GDV growth was 27%, it just forgot in the last slide as well. Which when you compare to the NETC CV growth, which was about 16%, still driving 11 percentage points, you know, delta over the industry growth, largely because of a strong product and largely because of the strong distribution. Overall business definitely has grown at a higher level, largely because a stronger growth in the telematics business, which continue to deliver strong sales numbers. Under telematics business, we have different product categories, where there is a basic GPS vehicle tracking service, and there is a AIS specialized vehicle tracking service, which is largely driven through mandates.
The sales of the AIS vertical doubled during the last quarter, which was largely driven by mandates and largely driven by a strong distribution and a product play. That's the narrative on the core business. Coming to the growth businesses on a year-on-year basis, they grew roughly close to about 300% in the Q4 of last year, right? Largely there, the gross revenues are composed of the vehicle finance business and the Superloads business. Superloads business, the narrative continues to be the same. Our matured or let's say our first hubs of Bangalore and Hyderabad, we continue to scale, continue to double down and these continue to show signs of strength from a unit economics from a scale perspective.
We had updated to you couple of quarters back that we started our business in 10 new cities. Most of those cities or all the cities are growing much faster than the earlier established cities. Largely because of the network effects of existing customers' relationships which we've activated in the older cities, they have translated to the business for these cities directly. The supply base which was activated on Superloads in the existing cities continue to be leveraged and utilized in the newer cities as well. That narrative continues to be, you know, the same, we're doing everything it takes to grow that faster. In the vehicle finance business, which is, you know, under the growth business, a bit older business, you know, compared to Superloads.
There, this last two quarters were very strong in terms of disbursements for that particular business. The previous quarter, we delivered a growth of 30%. On top of that, the disbursements further grew by 25%. Definitely a seasonally strong quarter for that business. On top of that, strong execution has led to driving this growth. Good part about the vehicle finance business under the growth business umbrella is that, as you all know, we basically are investing a lot of money in our growth businesses. A lot of money which we generate in the core businesses, we are investing in the growth businesses.
Vehicle finance business, probably by the end of this financial year, would no longer be in the investment mode and would start probably churning, you know, cash flows, which will also enable us to move that into a core business kind of a trajectory from a narrative perspective. Moving forward, commentary on profitability. Broadly following the trends of the last, you know, three quarters, overall yearly growth in EBITDA has been at 84%, which has moved to 190 growth trajectory, which we spoke about. On a recent quarter basis, the growth in profitability is 30% on a year-on-year basis, and we delivered INR 50.2 crore of adjusted EBITDA in the last quarter.
Largely, the narrative, if you cut across the momentum and the quality of revenue growth and profitability growth has largely been consistent compared to the last 8- 12 quarters in the core businesses. Regardless of a bit of, you know, unfavorable macro headwinds in the last quarter, we continue to execute and deliver this profitability, right? Even if you look at metrics like operating leverage in terms of translating the revenue growth moving into profits, most of that is holding good in the core businesses as we speak. Moving into the newer businesses, that's where we, you know, continue to step up our investments because these are in the rapid expansion phases.
We are conducting multiple experiments, be it on the supply side, be it on the demand side, be it for faster scale up, be it for quality customer service, be it for, you know, maximizing profitability, be it for, you know, blitzscaling in certain customer segments. We are taking up most of these experiments parallelly, which makes it imperative to add teams, add product and technology, you know, team members. This is also the area of strong investments in AI for us, because Superloads probably will be one of those businesses which will be an AI native business for us, as we, you know, strongly execute this, you know, vertical. One area we wanted to give a heads up, I think, this is something which is not a, you know, hidden topic, but everybody knows about this.
Probably being in the, you know, heavy truck movement, intercity movement, which typically can feel the headwinds maybe quite early on compared to others, right? We believe that the West Asia conflict, which is a widespread conflict, not only for us, but for the whole Indian economy, will have short-term headwinds with anticipated drag on trade movement, which obviously, because most of our revenue comes from flow-throughs, we continue to climb on our revenues, that will be consistent, maybe create a drag on our [short-term growth.] Long-term growth profile, long-term projection of how operating metrics will play around, everything will largely remain same. Long-term retention rates, long-term ARPU rates, everything will be consistent.
I think in the short- term, there would be some headwind which we need to be watchful of, we need to be prepared, and we are actively doing that. One small narrative on that, which is a very direct impact, is, you know, as you know that we make, we have a fuel business which goes on, which is basically built on top of the loyalty program, which [OMC is], you know, work on and they have suspended their loyalty program temporarily. Like, that's the bad part. The good part is this has happened, you know, a bit of hiccups on this business segment has happened in the past as well. Some of this takes a bit of short time, then it comes back. Yes.
Some of these headwinds, you know, minor headwinds we'll be facing. Some of this impact has already been absorbed in the last quarter's profitability. Some of this impact will show up in the next quarter as well. Again, reiterating, none of these is a structural change or none of these is impacts long-term customer acquisition, neither long-term customer retention, neither ARPUs. That's the broad narrative on the business. Giving you a, you know, broad highlight on the P&L. As we have narrated already on the top- line, 46% on a quarterly year-on-year basis. On a full year basis, 55%. Net revenue growth 31% on the recent quarter on a year-on-year basis. Adjusted EBITDA growth of 30%.
Full year, as you can see here, adjusted EBITDA is INR 190 crore and PAT is INR 160 crore. We've always given this narrative that our adjusted EBITDA mimics the free cash flow from operations. In the full year of financial year, we've delivered close to INR 185-INR 190 crore of free cash flow, which has been a consistent trend of adjusted EBITDA to free cash flow conversion for us. That's, you know, again, on a distributor basis, a full year growth of 84% on a year-on-year basis.
Broadly zooming out and giving you a full year view, broadly from the timeline we went public, that you guys would be, it's easier to look at these trends because we articulated that this is sort of the business model which will be playing out. If you can see on registered EBITDA basis, from FY 2023, where we were in a strong user acquisition mode, we continue to be in a strong user acquisition mode, but the annuity revenues had not played out till then. That converted into roughly close to INR -6 crore in FY 2024, turned around a strong profitability on adjusted EBITDA, INR 103 crore last year. That has moved up to INR 190 crore.
That's a flip if off, close to INR 400 crore, INR 364 and INR 34 crore over a three-year sort of a time period. Same thing on PAT, is even more stark to observe. From a negative of INR 290 crore in FY 2023, that's a INR 450 crore turnaround in profitability in three financial years. That has been the trend. As we have accelerated in FY 2025, FY 2026 into newer businesses, we are investing, the core businesses will have a continuing follow-through trend as you can see here, but the growth businesses will consume money.
In the overall basis, we will have a balanced trade-off of continuing to churn profits from core businesses and continuing to invest in the future so that, you know, we probably end up building a massively large company and massively transformative company in this space in the long term. Reiterating the strategy, as I always explain, I personally take a pride in executing the same strategy every year because that also gives a testimony that the strategy articulated a year back, largely, you know, was profound and sound, and it helps us, you know, have a longer run-through, and our decisions stick with the test of time. Strategy largely remains same, that we have core businesses on tolling, fueling, fuel sensor, vehicle tracking, AIS, GPS, and multiple experiments within the core businesses. The new businesses under core.
Here, the key focus will be to continue to compound on profitability, which will be enabled through operating leverage. We'll continue to expand our market share. As the landscape continues to evolve, you know, because the space is attractive, continues to, you know, will continue to attract few players here and there. We will keep track of that, and we will not let the long-term picture, you know, go out, and we will, you know, keep investing in this business as well. You know, while we've delivered consistent operating leverage in this business in the last two, three quarters also, we've also stepped up investments in core businesses as well. Last time I highlighted that, I thought I will remind that again. In the growth businesses, again, the playbook is same.
We are betting on Superloads and vehicle finance over here. Classifieds continues to grow, and we have, you know, an army of new experiments which we continue to do. These are the businesses we believe in with a very long-term potential. As we execute, the roadmap continues to get clear, the confidence on execution in these businesses continue to, you know, improve. You know, some of these businesses, if God's kind and we execute well, will move into the left side of core businesses as we move into the next year. Simply put, doubling down on execution in the core and turning more and more innovative and stepping our investments on the growth businesses. That's a summary of the strategy for the next year as well. We will pause here, and we can take questions. That's from my side. Yeah.
Thank you. We will now open the call for questions. Kindly raise your hand to ask a question. We will unmute your line. Please announce your name and organization name before you ask a question. As a reminder, we request all the participant to restrict themselves to two questions and come back in the queue. The first question is from the line of [Atul Borse]. [Atul], please go ahead. Unmute your line.
Hi, team. Hope you can hear me. Thanks for the opportunity.
Yes.
My first question is basically on the Superloads business. While you have mentioned in the PPT that Bangalore and Hyderabad are showing strong unit economics, do you want to elaborate a bit on this? Like, are these hubs operating on break-even? Any quantifiable metric that you can share or highlight? That's my first question.
Yeah, yeah. I think largely, it depends on, you know, it's a, it's a technology business enabled through manpower, right? The cost, the direct cost of business are manpower costs. Largely, upon tenuring of manpower, you know, people hit break-even periods. More tenured manpower is definitely, you know, returns money to the company. Newly hired manpower does not. From that point of view, it's consistent, right? Upon continuous scalability, the equation continues to hold. That's the strengthening unit economics part. You know, when you launch a new business, you first reach an ability to plot a P&L for the business in the future. I think we are able to do that strongly. Yeah, I think that's all we can share at this, you know, point in time. Yeah.
I just found that space, are we continuing to invest in our existing cities as well for the manpower? Like we're increasing manpower in those?
Yeah, yeah. We are. Yeah. We continue to scale teams rapidly in the, you know, existing cities also.
All right.
If we stop that, we can side break- even very fast, but that's not the objective.
Okay, understood. In the vehicle financing space, could you share some color on like what is the book size as of FY 2026? How much is on our books or let's say, dispersal growth or ticket size growth? Any metrics you want to highlight?
Yeah. Close to INR 600 crore is the assets managed by our partners overall, like partners in our books. About 10%-ish is basically on our books. Their strategy remains constant. Basically whenever we onboard a new partner, for the new partner's confidence, we do a, you know, co-lending book together. Any new experiments. If you see our book, large part of the book is new experiments as well. Anything we want to launch or we want to see, we first perfect it on our book. Our book we will only use, you know, for newer experiments and to probably launch new partnerships. We continue to build the vehicle finance on a asset-light model as we have always articulated the last three years. The strategy remains same. Yeah.
As you always understand, because we get a sourcing fee and then we get a, you know, like let's say a operational fee continuously. As and when partners make more and more money from the book, the revenue share, you know, revenue, absolute revenue made by us also increases. That's the broad nature of this business. The fixed costs, if they get covered out, this business will enter the break-even phase.
All right. If I can just squeeze last question? You're seeing the improvement in your working capital days, mainly because, payable has increased. Where is that coming from? Is it like mainly because of the Superloads business?
Yeah. I'll ask [Satyakam] to take this question. Yeah.
Yeah. Working capital days, [Atul], always has been pretty robust for us. If you can see no receivables exceed more than three months. Everything comes in like more than some of, at least, 50% of the revenues are received in advance for a year, if you look at the telematics business. On the other businesses, it's less than 30 days. On payables, there's nothing much that is there. It's a very small number. Some of the, let's say, purchase of telematics, et cetera, is what would be the AP that would have been built up. Nothing material has changed.
Okay. Okay. Thank you. Those are my questions. Best of luck.
Thank you. The next question is from [Raghav Mittal]. [Raghav], please unmute your line and go ahead.
Hi, good evening. Thank you for taking the question. I wanted to touch upon, Rajesh, on the MLFF system that the government is now aggressively trying to target. I mean, the couple of pilots as per news articles has gone well, and they're targeting like 200 corridors in a couple of years and potentially nationwide rollout by 2029, 2030. Can you just talk about MLFF being postpaid? Of course, you can also have a prepaid FASTag wallet, but how do you think about our relevance to our customers sort of reducing over time, and how do we mitigate that? Thank you.
Basically, the whole framework of MLFF is on prepaid collection. That's point number one, right? Because in India, small ticket sizes, postpaid and enforcement and the cost of collection of that is gonna be very high. Even now in the current framework, if you pay later, there's a penalty fee of double, right? When you use the word postpaid, first of all, it'll be prepaid, right? Second is that in the MLFF construct, right, the way to understand is that there are two ecosystems. There's acquirer ecosystem and there is a issuer ecosystem. 100% of our revenues are from the issuer ecosystem, right? The MLFF replaces the existing acquisition ecosystem to a MLFF-based acquisition ecosystem which uses cameras and much better quality RFID readers, right? That's the construct.
In the full-scale rollout of MLFF as well, the payment ecosystem, the payments methodology is basically FASTag. That is what has been articulated and that will continue. Point number one, the relevance of issuer ecosystem in terms of FASTag being the, you know, lead vector of, you know, conducting payments from the issuer side is going to be there forever. That's like base case, right? The next context is MLFF graduating into a satellite-based system is basically the next thing. Even in that change, the change is again on the acquirer ecosystem, not on the, you know, issuer ecosystem. That's like even if you, even if you fast-forward MLFF into the satellite, you know, GNSS-based tolling era, right? Answering your question on in MLFF again, right?
MLFF again provides an opportunity on the acquisition side, you know, to enter because largely it's a, you know, it's a, it's a telematics-led capability with a technology stack-led capability and being present in this ecosystem for a long period of time. Would we as BlackBuck, you know, would be looking at keen, like keen to participate on the acquirer side, right? That is something we are like let's say in talks with various players to discuss and see if we can, you know, jointly enter into some of these, you know, these opportunities as we move forward.
Thank you. That's very helpful. Just as a follow-up, what percentage of MLFF payments today are prepaid? Is it 100% or is it lower? I might be wrong. From what I read, it's like, yes, there's a penalty if you don't complete the fine with the stipulated period, but it's a postpaid arrangement.
We, whatever, offline information we've received, we believe 99%+ of the payments are prepaid.
Okay. What kind of opportunity-
Because-
for partnerships?
If the tag doesn't have a balance, it's considered as an offense as per the way it is defined, and there is a penalty for it. You don't have a balance in your tag and you've crossed it's a penalization framework and not an encouragement of postpaid framework.
How do they even check the tag? There is no barrier where you're stopping to check your tag.
The whole gantry system which is created on top of the like toll gate, the RFID readers which erstwhile used to be very close to the RFID tag are now on top of these, you know, gantry systems, number one. Number two is that they're using cameras to read the number plate, and government with one vehicle, one FASTag has already implemented the unified mechanism where a truck or a car only has one FASTag. With this whole ecosystem, they are able to achieve this high level accuracy of collections.
Okay. Lastly, what kind of partnerships are you exploring when it comes to the issuer, when it comes to the acquirer side of things as you go to the telematics?
We are in very early stages. Yeah, we are in very early stages of exploring these. Once there is more concrete plan on this, we would be happy to share.
Okay. Thank you so much. All the best.
Thank you. Participants please announce your organization name before asking the question. Next question is from Mr. [Ritvik] Agarwal. Ritvik, please unmute your line and announce your organization name and go ahead.
Hey. Hi, I'm audible. My name is Ritvik. I'm from [3P Investment Managers] . just had one question. Wanted to understand more on the telematics business. Any updates on the number of telematic devices that we have now, and how do we see the growth in this business going forward?
Yeah. Yeah. Telematics business growth, you know, I'll give you some color so that you will be able to get a feel of where the devices may be et cetera, right? Basically, if you split the business of telematics into, you know, three to four parts, one is our, you know, core vehicle tracking device which is regardless of mandates, which is a basic, you know, GPS tracking. Second is the AIS, you know, device which is driven by mandates, right? In terms of your, third is your fuel sensor and let's say the new initiatives like dash cam et cetera, right? The basic GPS device penetration, obviously coupled by a bit of cannibalization by AIS because AIS is now mandatory across 10 states, which drives the growth of AIS.
For the basic vehicle tracking device, that growth rate like let's say, you know, is on a lower side, right, than the overall core business growth rate in the range of that 15% levels. The AIS device, because it's a mandatory device in various different, you know, geographies et cetera, is seeing a very strong growth, as we also gave you a narrative that over the sequential quarter we doubled the AIS numbers as well. Sales is increasing at a very, you know, fast pace, and revenue will follow suit in a you know, time or the other. Fuel sensor business again, because it's a newer business in the stack. That continues to compound, right?
Overall, as a telematics category, because of a mix of each of these, you know, kind of, you know, businesses sort of put together, delivers a much higher growth rate, right, than like the rest of the, you know, core businesses. This is the broad model to understand.
Understood. The second question on the disruption from the Middle East war, just wanted to understand, is that the reason why we have shifted to a tolling GTV-only metric?
Yes.
In the-
Yes. Yeah. To be able to better appreciate, what's happening beneath, we segregated that metric and started giving tolling GTV so that, you know, that's the largest part of the payments GTV also, and also drives large part of the revenue also. That gives you a direct indicator.
Any sense on how much percentage would be tolling GTV, of the total payment GTV.
I think broadly, you know, you can assume, 90%-ish basically, yeah.
Understood. Okay. That's all from my side. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jeetu Panjabi. Jeetu, please unmute your line, mention your organization name and go ahead.
Hi. Jeetu Panjabi from EM Capital Advisors. I joined a little late, but a basic mundane question. When I see your growth numbers, they look pretty good, and then your margins have come off. Is this the function of you investing in the growth businesses and that those costs adding up and thus the margins headed softer? Hi, I can't hear you.
Sorry, Jeetu, we lost you. We only heard part of your question.
Okay. I'll repeat.
If you could repeat it.
Sorry. My apologies. Can you hear me now?
Yes, we can hear you.
Okay. My question is, sorry, I joined a little late. The headline question was when I saw the growth numbers, your growth numbers look good, but your margins have softened. Is that a function of y'all investing more capital or more money into the growth businesses, and thus those costs adding up and coming and hitting margins?
Of course, yes.
Okay. Second linked question is there a thought process in terms of the balance between growth and profitability? How would you manage that as you navigate the next three, four years? Also, what is in your mind, the growth that would be, you'd be comfortable with for the next year or two to guide?
Yeah. I think a good question, but I think the way we think about growth and the balance of profitability is a little opposite, because for us, growth is actually an outcome. Because we don't like, you know, we don't manufacture a growth rate. Let's say, for example, core businesses are there. They are basis some of the strong fundamentals of the economy works and how our acquisition engine works, right? At every point in time we try to go in to invest till the time, you know, it's not profitable to acquire that customer anymore, right? That's the way we go about driving growth, and the growth percentage comes as an outcome, right?
That's point number one, because, you know, getting a customer in an unprofitable way doesn't help, you know, the company, doesn't help anyone in the long term, because that's not sustainable, right? Point number one. Point number two on how do we balance growth versus profitability from a long-run perspective. Again, whatever number, compounded profitability number you are seeing, it's again not a, you know, not a calculation that we should have done 100 of core profit and then we should have, you know, invested only 20, and 80 we should deliver it as profit. Again, that's not a number. We are in a very large industry, right? It's a $200 billion kind of an industry, and we've built a company which is very small till now, and there are so many avenues to grow, right?
The way we look at always is that are there opportunities to pursue? Are there, like let's say in the testing phase, what will it take to really invest into, you know, these opportunities? God's been kind. The kind of platform we've built, most of the new opportunities we're able to test it out on a very small base, so that even does not ever affect burn. The burn comes in only when, you know, we try to scale up, and that scale up has a very strong bar on being able to define micro markets, being able to define ability to turn profitable whenever we want, right?
The way to look at is, we define the quality in which we want to build a business, and inside that, if we get an opportunity to invest and an investment makes sense, right, we, like, typically look at allocating capital regardless of what that quantum is, right? This is our framework of going about newer initiatives and the existing core businesses, because this just keeps it very clear in terms of that, you know, we are building a company which always has to be highly innovative. We will invest in every opportunity we get to if that's going to be long-term profitable, and that's going to solve a customer's problem, and that's going to return immensely to shareholders in the very long term, right? That's how we look at it. Whatever you are seeing, it is an outcome of, you know, such a input process.
Thank you. That helped clarify a lot of things. What kind of growth, headline growth do you think the company will sustain at?
I mean, as we, like, generally don't give growth guidance, I think, you know, this is, you know. Yeah. We've typically helped you guys to plot how to, you know, look at the business, how it will scale, et cetera. Yeah, but we have, like, we've decided not to give guidance, you know, on our numbers.
Okay. One last question, if I may sneak in. There was some, someone in the senior team who left. Can you talk about the reasons and what happened there?
We've spoken about this topic in the past. Like, the team in, at BlackBuck which reports into me typically has an average tenure in the company of like eight years, right? That was the case even when the company is like 11 years old. That was the case even when we were going public, because we were going public when we were nine years old, and the average tenure of people who were reporting to me was seven years. They were like the earliest of the employees, built the whole company, did, you know, good for themselves, right? One of them, two people left as, you know, three people left from a S&OP perspective, right?
you know, one of them, I think left within about two to three years, and other two of them were very long with us, seven to nine years. One of them left to pursue building his own company. One of, you know, them left to, you know, pursue, you know, sort of more balance on health, et cetera. That's the context.
Okay. Thank you very much. Good wishes. All the best.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of [Ankush Agarwal]. Ankush, please unmute your line and mention your organization name.
Yeah. Hi. Am I audible?
Yes, you are.
Yeah. Hi. This is Ankush from Surge Capital. Just one question. like few quarters back, the growth business was, I'm looking at net revenues, was around INR 10, INR 11 odd crore. last few quarters as we have scaled up, the Superloads , we have reached around INR 15 odd crore of, say, run rate, so about INR 5 crore extra. what I'm trying to understand is, when do we expect this, say, INR 5 crore of Superloads kind of net revenues starting to become, say, INR 20, INR 30, INR 40, INR 50 crore kind of number? in terms of cost, I think even if we consider that there are some extra incremental investment, the core business, the cost base has jumped from, say, INR 70, INR 75 odd crore to INR 100 crore now.
Obviously the investment looks kind of high versus the incremental net revenue that we are generating on the Superloads. At INR 4-INR 5 crore, quite basic, to be honest, to begin with.
I think the answer is absolutely right. I think the question is absolutely right. I think the pace of Superloads definitely would have been, you know, much stronger. you know, in terms of when that would, you know, come through, probably when the confidence on really going further all out in terms of strategies across all the newer hubs, et cetera. Maybe I think that is a time when such kind of scaling can be expected. And talking about the increase in the overall costs, remember that the investments in the core businesses also have been stepped up. The number-
Yeah.
which you're looking at it, a good part of that, like let's say, has also gone into the core businesses. It's not only the cost of Superloads, right? A good part of that also has gone into scaling up of vehicle finance. Though vehicle finance the revenue growth of vehicle finance continues to be at a higher pace than the investments, which you have increase in investments obviously, right? A part of that has gone into Superloads. Completely is not Superloads, point number one. Point number two, definitely the growth rate could have been faster, right? That's also our pursuit, you know, to make that happen.
As we have always, you know, maintained the playbook building on Superloads, you know, is taking time and, you know, we are also taking a narrative approach to ensure that, you know, we build the business in a much, you know, faster way and a better way. So that's the some of the narrative on how we are, you know, going about it. Yes, you know, we can expect that. We don't know when. Is it like, you know, one year down the line or two years down the line? Yeah, that's the goal.
I mean, the reason for asking this was, I think we peaked in terms of profitability, back in Q1 of FY 2026, almost 36% of adjusted EBITDA margin, and now we have sort of stabilized around 31% odd. Trying to understand, is this the kind of profitability that we could expect for next one, two years, during which you sort of scale Superloads and some of the newer growth businesses? Unless those businesses scale up quite rapidly, the profitability might even come down or, at this stable level about 30-ish percentage. Is that the right way to assume that that's how things play out?
I think Yeah, I think the way the earlier gentleman was asking the question, right, profit percentage is actually again a much more further outcome. Like let's say because we generate X in core, we invest Y. Now we see rapid growth, we increase Y, right? X largely follows secular trend, which I was mentioning, follows the operating leverage.
Right.
Construct, follows the growth construct. Y is all independent on that quarter need and probably subsequent two, three quarters, right? I would say that it's hard to put a number to this, but the way to look at it's an outcome metric and it is, you know, determined by X plus Y, and if X minus Y, in fact Y is a negative sign. Depending on what Y is your X comes, and X divided by overall net revenue is a percentage. That's why you see, because the overall revenue growth happens, like, and then there is increase in burn also, and then you have a profit which also increases. It's a pretty much composite metric, right? X minus Y by total R, right? RX plus RY.
Right. Mm-hmm.
You should look at it. Yeah.
Right. Would it be possible to sort of split, like how we are splitting revenues for the core and, you know, growth business? Would it be possible to split the profitability as well? Then it's better for us to appreciate how the core business playing out and the investment if you're doing in a growth business and even if there's burning cash, I mean that is understandable as investors. If we have a combined metric, it is very difficult to judge how the core business is sort of, you know, performing.
Fully agree with you, but I think we believe it's still too early.
Okay.
We will evaluate this, you know, down the year on when can we improve the visibility. I definitely understand your pain because modeling is tough for you.
Mm-hmm. Okay. That was all. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of [Arun Thirumalai]. Please unmute your line, mention your organization name, and go ahead. Arun, please unmute yourself. The next question is from the line of Abhishek Banerjee. Abhishek, please unmute yourself and go ahead. Please mention your organization name.
Yeah. This is Abhishek from [ICICI Sec]. Hey, thanks for the opportunity. Rajesh , yeah, I wanted to understand just, you know, a couple of things. One is you gave kind of a cautious outlook on, you know, the Middle East conflict. Do you, I mean, how bad, you know, do you see your revenues getting impacted? As in if you could give some idea, whether, you know, it's a growth slowdown or could there be some sort of a decline also? That would be, you know, really helpful. Secondly, on the vehicle financing business, and, you know, this is a question that I keep getting from investors, so wanted to just, you know, also check with you.
Is there any, you know, right to win that we have in this business? Is there something of a unique offering that we are doing, which is kind of giving us the confidence to, you know, try to build here, given that there is already, you know, enough number of NBFCs and financial companies who kind of operate in this space?
Yeah. I'll answer the questions sequentially. The Middle East crisis, the cautionary context was in terms of, as I think clearly articulated also, I think there'll be a drag on growth, right? I think that's the thought process, point number one, right? What we are seeing, as I'm mentioning, right, let's say because intercity trucks typically are sit at the top end of the value chain. Mostly till March, I think there was a lot of inventory, you know, stocks which would definitely move. I think, you know, going into April, you know, and May, we're finding some kind of drag on it taking off. I think that's the, you know, broad I don't think, because a lot of our revenues are also compounding in nature.
You will see it in the very small subsection, you know, some kind of a number up down here there, but I think that's the broad narrative on the Middle East crisis. On vehicle finance, I think very good question. Basically, vehicle finance in like, let's say, you know, the major players who do large competency, one of the large capabilities or differentiations or right to win there for all of them is distribution, right? Obviously the whole aspect of credit engine, you know, building intelligence respect to customer, right? Distribution and being very close to the customer is one of the most important right to wins for them. The whole, you know, if you, if you look at for a truck operator, digital means BlackBuck, right?
Our vehicle finance play is largely predicated on being a digital first, you know, company, being in the Like our mobile app is in the pocket of like large number of fleet operators across the country. We generate real-time data about these truck operators. Our vehicle finance play is predicated on, you know, this aspect, and that's yielding results. It's also a, you know, it's more like growing a growing market. It's a very big market and the whole technology, like, led approach to vehicle finance in terms of, you know, from right from, you know, meeting a customer to disbursing the loan, for a large part of the customers, we're able to do it within like 24 hours, you know, to 48 hours. 24 hours is something which we've achieved for a lot of customers.
I think there is a technology play where there are small 1x, 1x, 1x. When you add up, it clearly gives a 8x- 10x play. you know, that's true from a differentiation perspective. If you look at it from a technology kind of a business where you can, you know, architecture a non-linearity, we believe that at the end of the day, it's a risk business for our partners, right? Partners will take, you know, cautious calls continuously. We believe that it may not be a nonlinear business, and we have to work with the partners with their own approach to cycles, with their own credit writing frameworks and the delinquency management.
We believe that it'll be a strong tech-led, you know, vehicle finance origination play. Which is not nonlinear, but will give sufficient profit generation in the long term if built in the right way, you know, with the right partners. I think that's the broad takeaway of that business.
Got it. Just to expand a little bit more about this bit. You are not going to, you know, guarantee any sort of, you know, performance of these loans from their transaction behavior on your platform, right? That is a call which is completely with the your lending partner.
Yes. That is completely with the lending partner, and we make a origination fee and a collection fee depending on how well the portfolio behaves for them.
Got it. Got it. Thank you. Thank you so much, Rajesh . This is very helpful. Thanks.
Thank you. Next question is from Avnish Tiwari. Avnish, please unmute yourself and go ahead. Mention your organization name, please.
Hi, this is Avnish from [Vaikarya]. My question around this growth business. Is this business, you said is an investment mode, do you sort of have any profits at contribution level or they are also because of being in investment mode, it remains a negative number?
Yeah, I mean, this is the good part and also holds us back from going crazy. In trucking business, what we've understood over the years is that building a business with negative contribution, creates a lot of negative behavior and sentiment amongst the market participants because the nature is, at the end of the day, it's a B2B relationship, right? Most or like all our businesses, across, regardless they are new or experiments or whatever, we are always contribution margin positive. We make money on every order we do. If orders scale, our profitability converges. Yeah.
Great. It's only at the EBITDA level or, below that, around that line item.
Yes.
It would be a negative number, right?
Yes.
Great. Thank you and wish you really best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
That was the last question for the day. I now hand over the call to Mr. Rajesh for his closing comments. Thank you. Over to you.
I think that's all from our side, and I think we've covered everything which was on top of the mind. At least it's given you a flavor so that you guys have a feel of what we're building. Yeah. Again, as I articulate, we always love to keep it consistent, because I think building businesses with consistent strategies over a long period of time with laser sharp focus on few values and tenets creates big businesses and enduring businesses. I think that's what we are here to build. Yeah, thank you so much for attending our financial year-end earnings call and see you guys soon.
Thank you once again for your time and participation. On behalf of BlackBuck Limited, this concludes today's conference. For any questions, please feel free to write to us on the email IDs mentioned on the invite. We appreciate your engagement. You may now disconnect your lines.