Aurum PropTech Limited (AURUM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Aurum PropTech Limited Earnings Conference Call hosted by Emkay Global Financial Services Limited. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this call is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Shivang Bagla from Emkay Global. Thank you, and over to you, Shivang.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to quarter 3 FY 2026 Earnings Conference Call of Aurum PropTech Limited hosted by Emkay Global Financial Services. We are joined today by Mr. Ashish Deora, Founder and CEO of Aurum Ventures and Director of Aurum PropTech; Mr. Onkar Shetye, Executive Director of Aurum PropTech; Mr. Kunal Karan, CFO at Aurum PropTech; Mr. Rihen Shah, Lead Strategy and Investor Relations; and Mr. Shrikant Jagtap, Deputy CFO at Aurum PropTech. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that certain statements made during the call may be forward-looking in nature and are subject to risks and uncertainties as detailed in the annual report and investor presentation available on the website. With that, I would now like to hand over the call to Mr. Ashish Deora for his opening remarks. Thanks.

Thank you, Shivang, and good evening, everyone. It is my pleasure to welcome you to the 19th earnings call of Aurum PropTech. I'm honored to share with you our performance for this quarter. Q3 of FY '25-'26 marks a pivotal and truly landmark moment in the journey of Aurum PropTech. Since our inception in 2021, we have pursued a clear and focused vision to grow with discipline and building sustainable long-term value. I'm pleased to share that Q3 of FY '26 represents the outcome of quarters of consistent effort, execution and commitment towards a single goal, profitable growth. I'm encouraged to report that we have achieved an annualized revenue run rate of INR 460 crores and on track to reach INR 500 crores in the ongoing quarter. I would like to dedicate this significant milestone to our 1,000-plus team members. We firmly believe that this exponential yet disciplined growth has been made possible only because of the dedication and relentless efforts of our team members. This progress is being driven by our entrepreneurial leadership and management teams who continue to operate with a strong ownership mindset and disciplined execution. While we take a moment to celebrate this achievement, we are equally mindful that the journey ahead is already defined. Our next milestone is to reach INR 1,000 crores in annualized revenue alongside improving profitability. The heavy lifting required to achieve our next phase of growth has already been undertaken. Our focus now is on maintaining momentum and execution consistently across all our products and platforms to fully realize this opportunity. In recent quarters, we have been witnessing the network effects of our integrated PropTech ecosystem through stronger engagement, deeper platform integration and improved outcomes across the real estate value chain. While our revenue and profitability metrics are well under control, our focus going forward will increasingly be on ecosystem revenue. I would like to bring into focus 3 avenues for tracking our ecosystem revenue. While we have our laser sharp focus on reaching our next milestone of INR 1,000 crores, we will constantly track the quality of revenue, which we call ecosystem revenue. First avenue would be cross-selling opportunities across our product suite and platforms. Second, creating the robust data marketplace for increasing lifetime value for our existing assets and customers. Thirdly and finally, harnessing AI to increase business efficiency and enhance consumer experience. We believe that pursuing our financial goals in parallel with these 3 priorities will keep us sharply focused over the next 3 years and further reinforce our leadership position in the PropTech sector. Another significant development in Q3 was the Honorable Supreme Court's landmark clarification on GST for co-living, PGs and hostel residential leases. This ruling provides regulatory clarity and is very positive for the sector. We warmly welcome this decision and believe it will catalyze substantial growth into the co-living segment over the coming years. Looking ahead, our strategic priorities remain clear. We'll continue to strengthen financial performance across the ecosystem, accelerate product innovation with a greater emphasis on AI-driven decision-making, customer experience and operational efficiency. The idea is to remain sharply focused on consumer-centric digital-first execution. To conclude, Aurum today occupies a pivotal position in a sector that we helped organize and shape over the past 5 years. Yet the scale of opportunity ahead makes it feel as though the sector is only just beginning. With that, I now hand over the call to Onkar. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Deora. The third quarter of FY '26 marks a defining inflection point for Aurum PropTech as we transition to PAT profitability, supported by strong revenue growth, disciplined cost management and improving unit economics across businesses. Our continued focus on operational excellence, AI and data-led execution and technology-driven scalability is strengthening our integrated PropTech ecosystem across rental, distribution and capital segment, positioning us well for a sustained and profitable growth. The rental business sustained its growth momentum with INR 55 crores in revenue, up 24% year-on-year. The segment continues to benefit from tech-enabled services upgrade and improved customer experience across our brands, HelloWorld and Nestaway. We added 16 new buildings and served more than 2,200 new tenants during the quarter, bringing our managed portfolio to 270 properties with over 19,800 beds across 15-plus cities. HelloWorld continues to enhance tenant experience through targeted product upgrades and strong service performance while expanding its managed portfolio. Nestaway remained focused on improving unit economics and strengthening its digital resale and partner platforms. Our distribution vertical delivered another strong quarter of data-driven growth with INR 60 crores in revenue. Aurum Analytica sold over 117,000 leads to 140-plus active clients across 260-plus projects, representing 54% growth in lead sales over the same period last year. The Sell.Do CRM business continued to scale with 67% growth in new sales, 140-plus enterprise deals closed and 1,100 new licenses added during the quarter. We also strengthened our partnership across some of our marquee clients. PropTiger continued to scale its digital transaction management operations with 175-plus active developer clients and 11 active mandates, contributing meaningfully to lead generation, developer visibility and transaction velocity across key residential markets. Our AI-led product stack delivered measurable productivity gains with features such as call transcripts, translation and AI insights added to the stack. Overall, Q3 FY '26 has been a milestone quarter, marked by improved profitability, steady execution and deeper integration across our ecosystem. With our diversified yet connected platform spanning across rental, digital data and AI-enabled distribution and capital, we are well positioned to capture the next phase of growth in India's evolving PropTech landscape. I will now hand over to Mr. Kunal Karan, CFO, to take us through the financial results.

Thank you, Onkar. Thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. I will quickly take you through the consolidated results of the company for the quarter and 9 months period ended December 31, 2025. First, the results of the quarter. The results for the quarter include the performance of PropTiger Marketing Services Private Limited. In the previous quarter, the same was considered for 5 days. PropTiger was acquired on 26 September 2025. The revenue from operations for the quarter is INR 114.82 crores compared to INR 82.50 crores in the previous quarter, an increase of 39.2%. Other income INR 9.73 crores compared to INR 5.16 crores in the previous quarter. Total income INR 124.55 crores compared to INR 87.66 crores in the previous quarter, an increase of 42.1%. Profit before tax, INR 2.04 crores compared to a loss of INR 6.94 crores in the previous quarter. Profit after tax INR 2.71 crores as compared to a loss of INR 8.41 crores in the previous quarter. Now the results for the 9 months period ended December 31, 2025. Revenue from operations INR 265.73 crores compared to INR 193.43 crores in the corresponding period previous year, an increase of 37.3%. The income -- the total income stood at INR 289.18 crores compared to INR 206.94 crores in the corresponding period previous year. Loss before tax INR 15.69 crores compared to INR 35.43 crores in the corresponding period previous year. The segment results for the quarter. The Rental segment with a revenue of INR 54.55 crores as compared to INR 54.11 crores in the previous quarter. Distribution segment INR 59.60 crores compared to INR 27.19 crores in the previous quarter. Capital segment revenue INR 0.67 crores compared to INR 1.20 crores in the previous quarter. The Rental and Capital segments reported loss of INR 4.46 crores and INR 0.74 crores, respectively, while the Distribution segment made a profit of INR 11.37 crores during the quarter. The results for the 9 months period. Rental segment revenue INR 156.50 crores compared to INR 123.57 crores in the corresponding period previous year. Distribution segment revenue INR 105.67 crores compared to INR 58.09 crores in the corresponding period. Capital segment revenue at INR 3.55 crores compared to INR 11.77 crores in the corresponding period previous year. The Rental and Capital segments reported losses of INR 12.16 crores and INR 4.74 crores, respectively, while the Distribution segment made a profit of INR 18.67 crores for the 9-month period. I will now hand over the call to Yashashri to take it forward. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from Rahul Jain from Dolat Capital.

Yes. I hope I'm audible.

Yes.

Just a couple of questions. Firstly, Ashish ji, you spoke about the vision of INR 1,000 crores revenue with improved profitability. Are we also identifying these goals from a timeline factor? And what would be the key driver in your view of taking this revenue to that level? Do you expect the current portfolio to do most of the heavy lifting or you anticipate 1 or 2 more transactions for us to reach this milestone?

Rahul, good to speak to you. So this first INR 1,000 crores that we are talking about, this is coming organically from our existing products, existing platforms. There is no additional revenue that's considered from any of the inorganic acquisitions that we are anticipating to do currently. We believe that 3 years, which is 10 to 12 quarters from now is a reasonable sort of scale-up plan to be close to the INR 1,000 crore annualized revenue. That is where we think we should be.

That's pretty helpful. On the distribution business, we have seen there is a marked improvement in this quarter both from growth and profitability. Of course, there was a PropTiger additional days contribution effectively came in this quarter. So any color in terms of how big was the contribution from this business? And also, there was this mention of 11 active mandates. It would be great if you could share a few thoughts like what are the typical yields on such kind of mandate. Does that 11 mandate means most of the revenue would have come from these mandates or it's like spread over many customers and 11 are the bigger one. Any color on these aspects would be great to understand.

Rahul, this is Rihen here. PropTiger contributed approximately INR 30 crores of revenue in this quarter. And you're right, we specifically called out the mandates because this is the highest ever mandates that PropTiger has had over the last 2 to 3 years. And we are growing that business. There is good profitability in that business segment. However, still mandate would account for around 20% of the revenue and 80% of the revenue comes from the AOP business. In future, we will be scaling the AOP mandate and mortgage all 3 businesses in the PropTiger and we'll be seeing growth over there. In terms of the future projections, we believe that the rental and distribution both will be growing and scaling to reach the INR 1,000 crore ARR mentioned by Ashish sir as well.

Rahul, just to add to what Rihen just said, the entire distribution segment has done well because of PropTiger. It's not only the PropTiger numbers. And if you go back to what we had tried to articulate after the Nestaway acquisition that we will only look at acquisitions now, which will sit exactly between two of our products or we'll have great adjacency. And PropTiger has done that. All the businesses, the Analytica, the Sell.Do also gets benefited by the offerings of PropTiger. So of course, PropTiger on its own is kind of adding to the ecosystem, but it also increases the various other opportunities within the ecosystem, within the distribution segments.

Sure, sure. I completely subscribe to that thought. Just a small more input if Rihen you could add in terms of the AOP model versus the mandate model out here? And secondly, do we also leverage the digital progress that we have in the Analytica business and some of the mandates that we have on the PropTiger side?

Sure, sure. So Rahul, PropTiger currently -- is basically, while selling the apartment, what it does is it signs an annual operating plan, which is the AOP business with developers. Here, they have slab rates in terms of brokerage, which as and when they do a specific amount of turnover with the developer, they hit that and get that additional brokerage as well. That is accounting for around 80% of revenue currently in PropTiger. Mandate, in this business, all the sales that are happening for a specific project are booked through PropTiger, and the marketing is also done through PropTiger. For your second question, yes, Analytica does support PropTiger in terms of its lead generation. But PropTiger itself also has its own lead generation team and platform. However, we do see strong synergies between the businesses, and we are using them currently to scale up our business as well.

Sure, sure. And just last one from my side, which is more like a bookkeeping. If you could help us understand the other income part, which has risen sharply in this quarter. So what would have led to that? Any breakup of broad understanding would be fine.

So the other income, Rahul, most -- major part of it has come from HelloWorld. As you know, we are having this long-term contracts of HelloWorld where we do this IndAS accounting. And as we have started from January 2025, we made profitability as the goal, and we are trying to identify properties, which were not doing that great -- and -- but these are on long-term contracts. It was not easy to close down all these things at one shot. And so over a period of time in the last 9 months -- over the last 9 months, we have been able to net off some of these properties, mainly in the student living and some high-cost properties in Bangalore itself. A major part of it has happened -- so slowly it has happened in the first quarter and second quarter of the current year also, but the major part has happened in the third year. That is why much of the liability that was sitting in the balance sheet as on 30th September, we could reverse it. And though we have not let go those number of buildings and beds in the sense, but we could negotiate in a better way so that we can bring down our cost and the impact has come in the quarter.

So to get this point aligned since a big part of it coming from just a gain from this lease-rental contract. So effectively, if we kind of add it back to what we are doing on the segmental results for rental, we can assume that the rental business also effectively is at a breakeven point from that point of view?

Yes. So unfortunately, in the segment results, the other income doesn't come. So if you see our unallocable expenditure there, you'll find a number in the bracket. That means these are income. So that other income is setting over that instead of sitting in that rental business performance.

So I mean just for my understanding, since this gain come because we overbook the rental cost in form of depreciation interest instead of over and above the actual lease paid. So the operational hit that you take come into the segmental profit or that impact is also below the segmental part?

No, that cost comes as in 2 parts, one is depreciation and another is finance costs. In the segment result, depreciation you take it under the segment result, but in the finance cost, you don't take it. So it will be very -- and similar to other income also, we don't take it in the segment results. So the depreciation part comes in the segment result, but the finance cost and the other income doesn't come in the segment results.

Understood. Understood. And best of luck for the time ahead. And congratulations everyone to achieve the milestone profitably.

We'll take the next question from Param Vora from Trinetra Asset Managers. The question is, what is your approach to scaling rentals in Tier 2 and 3 cities versus metros? What are the differences in unit economics that influence expansion into these geographies?

Param ji, thank you so much for your question and very critical one from our rental segment perspective. With respect to our strategy for expansion in Tier 2 and Metro, something which is -- we are very clear about is that we follow where demand is. We have analyzed the data across multiple PIN codes and we cater to micro markets where we know that the demand is existent and we only capture those properties. With respect to Tier 2 versus metros, we are focused on young professionals and students. So there are specific key micro markets in the region, which is near to IT hubs, student accommodation, which is near to colleges and educational hubs, which is where we typically target to acquire assets. We have a very strong supply acquisition policy where every property goes through multiple scenario analysis to ensure that the unit economics are checked and put into place, ensuring long-term profitability for the asset. Similarly, the same process is followed for Tier 2, Tier 3 as well as metros. We follow a data-driven approach in terms of our supply acquisition and we are confident on our profitability track going ahead as well.

Param ji to add to what Rihen said, we have also bought some recalibration -- calibration rather in our strategy in Tier 1 and Tier 2 markets for rental business. We have adopted something called as win a PIN code strategy from a go-to-market standpoint, where the focus is going hyperlocal in terms of market domination and we select the geography, which is a PIN code, and we then put disproportionate efforts to ensure that we are getting the largest market share there, visibility and the consumer mindset. This we will adopt going forward so that we are able to put together a very dense cluster of properties in the co-living and family rentals available for our consumers across the PIN codes that we operate in.

We'll take next live question from Aruna Patel from Patel Enterprises.

So basically, I have one question here. Earlier, the company was working in the IT sector, okay. So just want to know still it is working in IT sector or if it is working in which platform they are working in IT coming off this leg?

Sure. Aruna ji, I couldn't -- we couldn't hear you very clearly, but I'll try to summarize the part that we heard and if you can just confirm on that thing. You mentioned that the company is working in IT sector, and you wanted to understand the sectors which Aurum PropTech is working in and the businesses in which Aurum PropTech operates. Is that correct?

Yes, yes. Correct.

Okay. So Aurum PropTech works in the proptech space, which is basically real estate and tech together. We have products which map across the entire life cycle of a consumer operating and interacting with real estate. This starts from the first time a consumer interacts, which is in form of student living and family rentals, which is rental as a segment. Then they want to purchase an apartment where the distribution segment comes in, which is a B2B segment. Over here, we have multiple products, which includes sales CRM, data -- lead analytics, lead generation as well as transaction management. And then capital is a segment, which includes investments into real estate. So that is the 3 segments in which the company operates.

Okay. So -- yes. So I can think like I'm a shareholder of Aurum PropTech. So I have a good quantity of your company's product. So right now, I just want to understand like in future, it will be gain and it will be like right now, I can just keep in a hold or what to do?

It'll not be apt for us to answer that question, but we have immense belief in proptech as a sector. And we believe that this sector is on its march to become a $10 billion market by 2030. And I think we'll be the top 2 players in this sector by that time.

And congratulations once again for your entire team and all the best for the remaining periods.

We'll take a text question from Viresh Sangwan, an individual investor. The question is when are we planning to launch first REIT product? And is this positive profit just one-off? Or should we expect this to continue in coming quarters?

Thank you so much for your question. For the first part of the question, which is regarding the SM REIT product, we've acquired the license in July 2025 for the SM REIT registration. We're currently building a strong pipeline of assets, which we believe will be the right fit for the SM REIT as an investment product. However, the product and its regulation is still new. We have only seen 2 SM REIT registrations and IPOs being launched in the market. We're actively evaluating assets and we will come out with the product as soon as we see the right fit and the right investment category for the same. We are very patient with this specific product and this segment. We believe that we want to be the largest and the most scalable SM REIT platform in the country, which is why we are evaluating assets and creating the pipeline currently for the same, and we launch as soon as we have something, which is good enough for the investors category, which we want to cater to. Thank you.

To your second question on profitability. We'll just underline the distribution segment has been in black for a considerable amount of time now for the past few quarters. And it will continue to be so. And taking a leaf from that, we are also now ensuring or focusing on making the rental business -- taking the rental business towards profitability. So while this is not a one-off, we would say the quarter where we have been in black, the focus is to now consistently deliver profitability over the subsequent quarters.

The next text question is from Sanjay Shah. The question is, can you share the kind of profitability you envisage in 3 years as you target to reach INR 1,000 crores by then on a blended basis?

So while the target is very clear of INR 1,000 crores of the annualized revenue. We believe that every quarter, we should try to increase the profitability margin. Of course, the business is cyclical. Q3, Q4 will always be better than Q1, Q2. But at INR 1,000 crores, we will be looking at 8% to 10% of the profitability at the least. So that is how we are sort of gearing up currently. As I try to speak about the ecosystem revenue, which comes through cross-selling opportunities through data and through AI that we are seeing a lot of network effect because of that, and that straightaway goes to the bottom line. So yes, 8% to 10% on INR 1,000 crores revenue in 3 years is something that we can indicate at this stage.

We'll take our next question from Faisal Hawa from H.G. Hawa And Company.

So sir, what are our plans to reduce this interest burden of per quarter of INR 7 crores to INR 8 crores? And have you been approached by any large organization to take a stake in any of the sum of parts business that we have?

So the interest cost that we see in the financial statement, it has got 2 parts. Out of that INR 8 crores, INR 2 crores actually the interest cost that we pay on the loan that we are having, the lease rental discounting that we are doing against the buildings that we are having. So definitely, we have a plan for that as we have earlier said that we want to give up the building and that by itself will reduce that interest cost. The balance cost is because of the IndAS impact on the long-term rents that we pay. So it will not go out because those kind of agreements will continue and based on the requirement of the accounting standards, we have to consider that as a finance cost. But that is actually the range that we pay on the long-term agreement, part of the rent that we pay against the long-term agreements. So actual per quarter finance cost will be around INR 2 crores of rupees.

Faisal ji to answer your second question, we haven't gone to market to raise capital or seek investors. And I mean there hasn't been any inbound opportunity that has come for investment in any of the sum of the parts or the subsidiary businesses.