We will be in 30,000 societies by this fiscal-end: MyGate

MyGate had raised $56 million in Series B in October 2019. Abhishek Kumar, co-founder & chief operating officer speaks on the strategy going forward. Edited excerpts:

How was your business impacted due to the covid crisis?

Some businesses, ours included, are witnessing increased relevance during these difficult times, and we are doing all that we can to help our customers and users through it. We’ve released over 10 new covid-specific features in these past six months, such as containment zone checks and an integration with Aarogya Setu. We also inked numerous partnerships, for bulk delivery of essential items. These include express delivery with Grofers and Box8, free tele-consultation and collaborations on medical services/products, covid home packages from Portea, Medlife and mfine and even a direct helpline to ambulance services.

After initially being hampered by the lockdowns, demand for the product has climbed back to pre-covid levels in late May and we’re now, in fact, seeing our best quarter. In January, we were in 6,000 gated communities.

By the end of September, we'll be close to 12,000, closing 1500 societies every month. As cities open up, and we promote the service in tier-1 and -2 cities, we see this number trending much higher imminently.

How are you helping gated communities fight the crisis?

Aside from the growing importance of our solution to gated communities, we have been able to build a viable operations framework to onboard, train and service societies remotely. This has enabled the company to take MyGate to over 100 cities, including smaller cities like Nashik and Dehradun.

What is the strategy going forward?

There are over 200,000 gated communities in India and that number is growing swiftly by around 13% year-on-year. We’re now in just under 11,000 societies and are growing faster than we have ever before. In major clusters of gated communities across the country, we’re the go-to option for community management. This will be a space of tremendous growth for the foreseeable future, and we see ourselves in 30,000 societies by the end of this fiscal - in part, on the back of some headwinds offered by the current crisis.

The other focus, which is a perennial effort, is innovating to drive more value to existing customers via various integrations and value-added services, which will be long-term revenue streams.

After the last round of funding, MyGate had initiated a buyback program? How did this help?

This was done merely to accommodate new investors and give an early exit to angel investors.

When are you looking at the next fund raise? And when do you think you will become a unicorn?

We’re a well-capitalised company with a focus on growth. There are no immediate plans for a fund raise. Our goal is to build a strong business delivering value to various stakeholders and solving real life problems. How and when this translates into unicorn status isn’t something we focus on. It’s an outcome of building the business in the right way.

How do startups need to re-imagine themselves in the post-covid world? And what are the challenges they are facing?

Start-ups are best at solving real-world problems, and this situation presents a number of them. The start-ups we interact with are all working tirelessly to alter their solutions to the new normal, often with encouraging results. It is an unfortunate situation in numerous ways, but there are also opportunities for smart organisations to succeed. There are also learnings for new start-ups, such as the importance of long-term contingency plans, the wisdom of hiring right and keeping teams as lean as possible, and, lastly, showing a willingness to adapt whatever be the situation.