Haatvik Commerce reports Rs 480 crore of revenue by booking the full value of goods its sellers sell on the platform. Seller payouts are Rs 430 crore and returns are 9% of GMV. What is net revenue, what is the real take rate, and what multiple should you use?

Net revenue is about Rs 50 crore, a take rate of 10.4% on delivered orders, so the Rs 480 crore is really GMV. Haatvik does not own the goods; sellers set prices and carry the stock, so the Rs 430 crore of payouts is their money passing through. Value it on net revenue: about 6x Rs 50 crore is Rs 300 crore. The founder's 4x on reported revenue is 38.4x net revenue.

A property broker who helps sell a Rs 1 crore flat does not earn Rs 1 crore; it earns its 2% commission, and the rest belongs to the seller. If the broker reported Rs 1 crore of revenue, its sales would look fifty times bigger than its business. A marketplace that does not own the goods, set the price or carry the stock is the broker, so its revenue is what it keeps, not what passes through it. Accounting standards draw this line by asking whether the company acts as principal or agent; confirm the exact indicators in the current standard, but the economics are already clear from the setup.

Rebuild it. Delivered orders net of returns are Rs 480 crore. Returns are 9% of the value of orders placed, so orders placed were Rs 480 crore over 0.91, Rs 527.5 crore, and returns Rs 47.5 crore. Of the Rs 480 crore, Rs 430 crore goes to sellers. Haatvik keeps Rs 50 crore, a 10.4% take on delivered GMV, or 9.5% on orders placed.

Match the multiple to the line it was built on. Your comparables trade at about 6x net revenue, so apply 6x to Rs 50 crore: about Rs 300 crore. The founder's 4x on Rs 480 crore, Rs 1,920 crore, is 38.4x net revenue, more than six times what comparable businesses fetch. If you prefer to think in GMV, convert the multiple rather than the revenue: 6x net revenue at a 10.4% take rate is about 0.62x delivered GMV, which gives the same Rs 300 crore.

Three things that tend to sit inside a gross-revenue deck. First, who pays for returns: if Haatvik bears reverse shipping and refunds its commission on returned orders, its true net revenue is below Rs 50 crore. Second, discounts it funds itself: a platform-paid discount reduces what it keeps, even if the customer price looks the same. Third, the trend in take rate by seller cohort: a rising take on new sellers can hide falling take on the large sellers who carry the volume.

Close with the judgement. Booking GMV as revenue is not proof of bad faith; some founders copy the presentation from businesses that do own stock. But the investment is in the Rs 50 crore business, not the Rs 480 crore one, and the price should be set on that. The limitation of this rebuild is that it relies on the payout figure being complete; ask for it reconciled to bank statements.