Tiffinvik Meals has Rs 36 crore of cash and loses money every month, but revenue grows 6% a month. Is it default alive, and what is the slowest growth that keeps it alive?

Tiffinvik is default alive: it breaks even in month 15 and its cash bottoms out at about Rs 20.2 crore. Gross profit grows about 5% a month faster than fixed costs, so the Rs 2 crore monthly loss closes in about fourteen months, burning Rs 15.8 crore. The minimum growth that keeps it alive is about 3.4% a month; below that the cash runs out before the losses end.

A student living on savings while starting a part-time job asks one question: will my pay cover my rent before my savings run out? If yes, she can stop worrying about borrowing. A startup is default alive when, with no new money, its profits arrive before its cash is gone; it is default dead when it needs another round just to survive. The distinction matters because a default-dead company raises from weakness and accepts whatever terms are offered.

Today gross profit is 40% of Rs 5 crore, Rs 2 crore, against Rs 4 crore of fixed costs: a Rs 2 crore loss. Gross profit grows 6% a month and fixed costs 1%, so the gap closes at about 5% a month. Break-even arrives when gross profit has doubled relative to fixed costs: month 14.3 exactly, so the first profitable month is month 15. By then monthly revenue is about Rs 12.0 crore.

The losses shrink every month on the way, so the total burn is much less than fourteen months of today's Rs 2 crore loss. Adding the monthly losses, cash falls from Rs 36 crore to a low of Rs 20.2 crore. Tiffinvik spends about Rs 15.8 crore to reach profit and keeps more than half of its cash, so on these assumptions it never needs to raise again.

Slower growth delays break-even and lengthens the stretch of losses, so the burn grows fast as growth falls. At 4% a month the business breaks even in month 24 and its cash bottoms out at Rs 8.3 crore. Solving for the rate at which the lowest cash balance is exactly zero gives about 3.37% a month, about 49% a year; below that Tiffinvik is default dead. Today's 6% a month is 101% a year, so the cushion is real but not huge: a fall of about two and a half points a month in growth would use all of it.

Then say what the model leaves out. Growth of 6% a month for over a year is rare in food delivery, and it usually needs marketing that the fixed-cost line may not include. A margin that dips as the company discounts to grow, or a kitchen expansion that steps fixed costs up, moves the answer quickly. The view: on its own numbers Tiffinvik is default alive with room to spare, and the diligence work is to test whether 6% a month can hold without spending that is missing from the plan.