Nearbuy India (formerly Groupon India) reported a loss of Rs 31 crore in 2015-16 on a revenue of Rs 92.98 crore. During the period, the company, which offers location-based deals and discount coupons that can be availed for shopping in brick and mortar stores, clocked a gross merchandise value (GMV) of Rs 198.63 crore.

“When nearbuy was Groupon India, we also accounted for the profit made by the Chennai Development Centre (which was a different unit but billed to India). Hence the GMV was almost equal to the revenue. This, however, is not the case after Nearbuy became independent,” says Sachin Kapur, co-founder and CMO, Nearbuy.

Kapur explains that in 2015-16 the company hired a tech team and increased its presence to 33 cities from 12. “Thus, the expansion costs led to increase in losses and costs.

The same will be offset by higher revenues in the times to come,” he adds.

The company claims that in December 2015, it generated highest GMV worth Rs 21.7 crore. The platform currently earns a 18-20% commission on every transaction. The average ticket size is Rs 1,200.

The platform currently competes with Paytm backed app Little and InfoEdge’s Mydala.

Post the re-branding, the platform has managed to ink exclusive tie-ups with offline brands including PVR, KFC, Radisson, Domino’s. Additionally, it claims that 86% merchants return to re-feature their products within three months.

As a platform nearbuy.com, allows a customer to avail different offers from retailers based on their locations.

According to Kapur, more than one million customers have already transacted on Nearbuy. “Over 40% of the purchases are redeemed on the merchant outlet within the first two hours. The same number during Groupon was in days,” says Kapur.

As for Groupon Inc, it still remains largest minority shareholder in the company with the company’s global CMO as one of the board members on Nearbuy. “As a global company, Groupon couldn’t focus much on India. As we are going through an internet revolution, we could not wait for the technology to come to us. So becoming independent made a lot of sense,” adds Kapur.

With a new identity and a business model in place, Kapur says that in 2016-17, the company aims to earn revenue of Rs 57 crore and gross merchandise value worth Rs 300 crore. It expects to break-even by then.