Home / Transcripts / Infollion Research Services Limited (INFOLLION) · October 16, 2026

Infollion Research Services Limited (INFOLLION) Earnings Call Transcript

October 16, 2026

NSEI IN Industrials Professional Services earnings 56 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Operator operator
#1

Good day, and welcome to Infollion Research Services Limited H1 FY 2027 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this meeting is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Purvangi Jain from Valorem Advisors. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.

Purvangi Jain analyst
#2

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My name is Purvangi Jain for Valorem Advisors. We represent the Investor Relations for Infollion Retail Services Limited. On behalf of the company, I'd like to thank you all for participating in the company's earnings conference call for the first half of the financial year 2027. Before we begin, let me mention a short cautionary statement. Some of the statements made in today's earnings call may be forward-looking in nature. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those anticipated. Such statements are based on management's beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to the management. Audiences are cautioned not to place any undue reliance on these forward-looking statements in making any investment decision. The purpose of today's earnings call is purely to educate and bring awareness about the company's fundamental business and financials under review. Now let me introduce you to the management team participating in today's earnings call. We have with us Mr. Gaurav Munjal, Managing Director; Mr. Varun Khandelwal, VP Strategic Initiatives, Mr. Abhay Sangal, Business Head - NAMR; Mr. Abhishek Jha, CFO; and Ms. Aastha Talwar, CF and Compliance Officer. Without any further delay, I request Mr. Gaurav Munjal to start with his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Gaurav Munjal executive
#3

Thank you , Purvangi. A very warm welcome to everyone joining us today. This is the earnings call for the first half of the year financial year 2027. Quick note for people who are joining us for the first time. So we are almost 17-year-old company, started in 2009. We listed on the SME Gold in June 23, and we are currently in the largest home-grown expert network. Our primary offering is aggregated exports, which are available on demand to clients. But typically -- so we operate as a marketplace. There are experts on one side of the marketplace who are typically subject matter experts in various domains like chemicals, pharma, steel, et cetera. And on the other side, there are clients who are looking for deep domain knowledge, typically consulting firms,, private equity funds, hedge funds, strategy of corporates. And our job is to make those experts available on demand for short concentrations. So over the years, we have aggregated these experts. There are more than 1.5 lakh now. Most of these experts average somewhere around 20, 25 years of experience. And almost all of them are invitation based and meticulously curated across domains. So what we typically do is our clients come to us with a business question. We identify the experts who have been there and done that for diligence for investment research, market assessments, et cetera, and make them available on an hourly basis to our clients. So we -- when we aggregate the experts, we do that at a certain price and they are given a certain hourly price. And then we have a take rate and that -- the overall produces paid by the clients to us. So our take rate is where our margin comes from. And this half we had the strongest half year performance to date. The revenue from -- the overall revenue reached almost INR 60 crores with operating revenue INR 59 crores, registering a growth of almost 15% year-on-year and more than 20% on a sequential level. The overall performance reflects the continued strength of our business, the expansion of our network and also progress we have made across our strategic growth initiatives. So in spite of the overall environment remaining a little subdued in the first half of this year, I think we have covered out reasonably well while we are not out of the woods yet, as we said, but we have seen some green shoots and things are getting better, and that's getting reflected in our numbers, while we hope that we should be able to get back to our better growth stakes and even the numbers. At this stage, we are pretty happy with what we achieved in the first half of this year. So we've continued to strengthen the scale and depth of our network. Our panel grew to almost INR 1.55 lakhs across sectors. We delivered almost 2,500 calls compared to a similar number last year, but we have managed to increase the ticket size of our calls. International expansion is a very important part of the strategy. We have seen some very good numbers across the world. So outside India, we are focusing on primarily U.S., but there are 2 secondary geographies as well, which we are targeting, which is MENA and certain parts of the EU, primarily [indiscernible] regions and maybe the English-speaking regions. So we have seen healthy growth rates in both of them, much better than our Indian growth rates. We will release the final numbers, of course. And in the -- at the end of the year. In MENA, we have seen some very good growth rates. EU is where Mina was last year. MENA is Middle East and North Africa. U.S. was growing at a very hefty lick. Besides that, they restarted 1 more vertical, which was HUKSA, which was a LNBvertical, basically harnessing the expert knowledge and undocumented expert knowledge we had in a structured way for corporates. That has also shown some very positive numbers. We have continued to add new logos. We are not -- we have more than 60% repeat rates for that. So pretty happy with what's going on with HUKSA. And -- so we have -- I mean, half year level compared to the same year last -- same period last year, last financial year. We have almost doubled our HUKSA revenues. Again, it is showing a very promising trend. Along with organic expansions, so we are also -- we also invested in our engineering services company, which is [indiscernible] Private Limited. We have done the first half initially. -- first half and we've invested about INR 6 million in the first half of this year, and we will continue to do about INR 30 lakh per quarter for the next 2 months. The total will come to about INR 1.2 crores for 20% [indiscernible] versus stake. From an operational standpoint, we're focusing a lot on take part. There is a very interesting dimension which we are adding to our overall offerings, which is usage of our exports for AIM cases. We have been trying to say that for a while. We think it should -- it actually offers a long-term opportunity, a very promising growth area. While we haven't seen a lot of value there -- a lot of revenue there at this stage, but we believe the world is moving towards that. So how we are seeing our business now is that there is undocumented expert or undocumented human knowledge or lumen judgment available on Bansal. And anyone who needs that would like to would like to engage with those experts. So what we have seen is that enterprise AI agents are certain specialized models or some -- not the large leasing models, but specialized models or fit models are also going to utilize these experts at the top level. This is opening up a completely new revenue channel for us. And we have launched that not really launched to ours, but we have started excluding that under the brand name, Third Eye, which will be essentially using our experts exclusively for AI use cases, evaluations observe whatever it takes, there are lots of ways to utilize that human judgment and we will be taking -- we would be doing some experiments over the next couple of years on that front. So Third Eye is going to be a promising use case for us. So going forward, the international expansion, HUKSA and are settling down nicely. They are cruising and a new initiative, Third Eye, which is a similar or harnessing our export knowledge for AI use case is something that we are trying to build under the brand name, Third Eye. So that's it from my side for the presentation. And I'll hand it over to Abhishek for the financial performance.

Abhishek Jha executive
#4

Yes. Thanks, Gaurav. Good morning, participants. Thank you for joining the earnings call for the first half of this financial year. Talking about the financial performance, the total revenue was INR 60 crores, almost 20% up from the previous half. Gross margin was almost 41%. EBITDA was INR 7.7 crores, up by almost 27% from the previous half. Profit after tax was INR 6.7 crores almost 24% up from the PSR. The detailed financials in investor presentation and commentary are filed with NSE already. You can check there for more details. Thank you so much. Now we can move forward to the Q&A session. Over to you, Purvangi.

Purvangi Jain analyst
#5

[indiscernible], can we have the list of participants, please, those who are asking questions?

Operator operator
#6

[Operator Instructions] First question is from the line of Parth Agarwal. [Operator Instructions]

Unknown Analyst analyst
#7

Okay. So actually, you have delivered decent quarter, decent con because honestly, you're expecting like a degrowth or something, but congratulations on that. Secondly, I just wanted to understand what kind of revenue are we seeing from HUKSA and international business in H1. Can you help me with that?

Gaurav Munjal executive
#8

So what I'll do is you've just shared the commentary, but -- most of the questions have been answered, I just see from that still -- so this is on the international business. So we have started operations in the EU. The business currently at the same level when MENA was last year. U.S. and MENA has grown at a significantly faster rate. Having said that, the overall revenue contribution from non-India still remains in single nets.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#9

Got it. And are we getting any revenue from HUKSA?

Gaurav Munjal executive
#10

Yes, yes, HUKSA is revenue rating. We did almost INR 1 crore last year and our current run rate compared to the same half last year is almost local.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#11

Okay. Got it. And also interesting that you mentioned about third it. But can you help me a bit on what exactly are we doing there? And secondly, are we like working with players like open Entropic or you are in some?

Gaurav Munjal executive
#12

No. As I said, it would be specialized enterprise AI agent. So the large reasoning models typically tend to use human judgment for lower value use cases because they need to address the mass market as -- but enterprise area agents, let's say, there is a chemical procurement agent. Someone is some company which is making agent for procurement of chemicals. So that company needs very specialized resources. And let's say, we have experts who have worked in large chemical companies, Indian and Global, we would be -- so again, before I say anything at this stage, this is a relatively early stage. We don't know how it will pan out. All we know is that human judgment will be used in various ways by AI companies, right? Typically, large models would not do that. But as AI moves from basics to high-end models, or specialized roles. That's where our -- that can potentially open up revenue channel for us. There are hundreds of use cases in this scenario. Let's say, I'll continue with the chemical procurement as an example, there is a company which is making an agent for procurement. So -- and there may be cases where during the trace, they figure out that the agent was not able to do something right, and at the trace, our experts can say that this is very a agent went wrong. So this is called the output evaluation. And during the training of agents is also 1 area where it can happen. So there are lots of companies who are coming up, and we would also like to explore that.

Operator operator
#13

Next question is from line of Sonal Minaz. [Operator Instructions]

Unknown Analyst analyst
#14

This is Sonal Minaz, hope I'm audible.

Operator operator
#15

Yes. Kindly announce your company name.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#16

I'm from TCL Capital. I have 2 questions. The first is with regard to pricing, Gaurav, which is linked to revenue per call. So quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year, I think your revenue per call has gone up. First question is what has the company done to bring this up? And the second part of the question is, in your notes, you do cover predatory or penetrated pricing vis-a-vis competition? How much of this has helped us in building market share with premium agents, the premium clients? And do you plan to pursue this in the future? So yes, these are the -- this is the first question.

Gaurav Munjal executive
#17

Thank you so much for the questions, Sonal. So 2 reasons for increase in ticket size. One, there is always a little bit of inflationary increase. So we always do that about 5%, 7%. Though it was a conscious call that if you start going premium, you need to increase the price. But while increasing the price at this stage, not know where it is creditor or anything, but it's aggressive pricing stance which we are maintaining. At some point of time, we may do that, we may come down but on that front. But as of now, we think they are quite comfortable with the margins. And I don't have the precise numbers yet, but my sense is that most of our competitors and clients are private and by the time numbers are out, I would be able to -- I will be in a better position to do that. But my sense is we would have probably gained more market share. I don't have a number for it because most of the private numbers are not outlaid.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#18

Okay. Got it. Gaurav, one more thing. I think in your commentary, you've said that your debtors this quarter are up because H2, your C3 revenue determines your end-of-period debtors, which we understand. The same was the case for same H1 last year. Your debtors last quarter were around 23-odd a year, and we ended up doing H2 words of compared to H1. So if we just laid the 2, that doesn't seem to be the case. So the bigger question here is that does that hold true? And how are you seeing H2 compared to H1, as we speak right now?

Gaurav Munjal executive
#19

Okay. So the debtors...

Unknown Analyst analyst
#20

The logic that you've given didn't hold through in H2 last year. So that was just an understood your debtors last -- debtors for H1 last year were 23 CR, and we -- the revenue for H2 was not commensurate. So just trying to understand that, yes.

Gaurav Munjal executive
#21

So from what I understand, what you're trying to ask is that towards the end, how much are receivables, right?

Unknown Analyst analyst
#22

Yes.

Gaurav Munjal executive
#23

Right. So no, it does stand. I'm not sure how it doesn't because what typically happens is that if you divide it by 6 months on a 12 months basis, it's slightly different. But if within that half or within the period, if it is loaded towards the end, the debtors tend to increase. right? So -- which was very similar to what happened in H1 last year. And in H2 last year and March was subdued. So we had the debtors were much low. And now it is again picking up. And we have had, as I mentioned, in the second half of -- on the second quarter of first half is actually much better than it is on a positive trend. So the debtors are likely to increase. Does that answer your question?

Unknown Analyst analyst
#24

That does. It's linked to the outlook for H2. So how Outlook for H2? How real is the outlook for H2 yes. Basically, that's the question.

Gaurav Munjal executive
#25

So I would not give a revenue outlook as of now. I am still not sure. What we can -- what I'm relatively sure is that the percentage of international revenue is likely to increase. Indian revenue I'm still not sure. We haven't seen a consistent trend, but we have seen a positive trend. So it may not be -- it is hopefully better than the H2 last year, but I won't be able to quantify at this stage. It could be a really forward-looking statement, which I do not have the basics for right now.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#26

No, that's fine. That's fair. Just because the commentary mentioned there is a see through that you can do. That's why I just wanted to clarify. Can I squeeze in a third question, if I may be allowed by the operator?

Operator operator
#27

Sure, sir. Please go ahead.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#28

Yes. So my third question is linked to the softness that you're seeing in the India business. And this is linked to, I think, consulting, by and large, having a soft -- how are you seeing the recruitment and consulting in the last 12 months, the trailing 12 months? And second part is that relatively speaking, I think you are weaker compared to your competition in private equity funds, by and large, the larger funds without operate in India. What are we doing in that regard?

Gaurav Munjal executive
#29

No, we have increased market share on the financial front. In consulting, we have seen a flat number. In fact, as I said, I mean, once those numbers are out, the private numbers will be out probably in November, we'll be able to give you a better sense. But from what we have covered anecdotally, consulting has been flat for good 1.5 years. Recruitment, yes, picking up, but recruitment started going down back in '25.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#30

End of '25, yes.

Gaurav Munjal executive
#31

That's what the lead time was mean. I'm saying end of '25, or late 24, the recruitment started slowing down a little for consulting. And now they are back to normal is what I hear. I didn't have the precise numbers yet, but at the revenue level, I think consulting has been flat for good 1, 1.5 years with some mean shoots at recruitment level, I think it is very close to normal uptrend, but consulting in itself is going through [indiscernible].

Operator operator
#32

Next question is from line of Rohit Balakrishna. [Operator Instructions]

Unknown Analyst analyst
#33

Yes. Gaurav, so just on this gross margins. So I mean I just wanted to -- this is like the third -- I mean, I think, 18 months that we are at that 41%, 42% kind of gross margin, previously was much higher. And going back to that point of we have increased our pricing substantially. If -- what I can see is we were around INR 45,000, INR 47,000, INR 48,000 and now we are at INR 56,000 per call. So just want to tie these 2 together. You've been -- like you mentioned in your note in the last call also that we are doing some kind of aggressive pricing -- so given -- so I just wanted to hear from you again maybe for a better clarity between 6 months since we spoke. So just wanted to understand like what are you seeing, given the size of the market itself is small. So -- and you already have a decent market share. And if counter to what one would -- what this predicting pricing one would say that probably you have the ability to increase your prices and get better margins given that it's a tough period for your customers, you can actually increase your market share without having to really reduce your prices and stuff. So I just wanted to sort of understand your perspective again on this. Given we are already such a dominant -- fairly dominant player, why would you want to continue on this aggressive price given that the end market is not growing? And anyway, if you sort of just let the your competitors just be there, they'll anyway not be able to increase their market share, given your strong market position. So I wanted to hear your perspective. I mean, this is what I was thinking. Maybe I wanted to hear what you are -- what your team is [indiscernible].

Gaurav Munjal executive
#34

Yes, I'd just say that we are still not dominant enough where we would like to be. in any marketplace scenario, a single player needs to be really, really large with a not so large second player and a long tail. We are still not -- we are still far away from those dynamics. I think we would have gained market share this year. I don't have the precise number. I'll probably be in a better position later last year. But 3 years ago or 4 years ago, we were probably not the first one. Maybe in the second part somewhere close to the first one. Now we are definitely much, much larger than the second and the third and probably the fourth. So the number has changed. We want to press the accelerator on that front. Over a period of time, we may come back on pricing. But as of now, for our India business, we think these are sustainable pricing. And we have structured our business in such a way that we can manage that. And yes, at some point of time, we would think of increasing, but as of now, our target is to have as much data as possible and connect as much exports and connect with as much exports as possible on our platform and try to retain both clients and exports. So I mean structurally, we think we can sustain it much better than our peers. And in spite of that, we can make profit while our most of -- the global players definitely cannot do that at these pre numbers. Indian players can reduce the quality and do that, but we are probably the only ones who can increase the overall expert quality and still have those margins and make profits.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#35

Okay. Okay. So you don't expect these gross margins to get back to those 47%, 46% that we used to have just as recent as last?

Gaurav Munjal executive
#36

No, I would never say never, not at all. I mean it depends on the market dynamics. At this stage, we are pretty comfortable. I mean when the markets stabilize a little, which we have seen we might.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#37

Okay. So the next question was, I see like this quarter, we saw call volumes sort of at least sequentially improve. So if you can talk a bit about how much was it -- was it largely India? Or was it driven by overseas? And if you can also share a bit how has over been and what our on call volumes, specifically, how do you see, let's say, Q3, like in terms of how do you see this Q3 and H2?

Gaurav Munjal executive
#38

So Q3 and Q4, not Q4, maybe but end of Q3 and start of Q4 are historically slower for us due to the working day scenarios. Typically, we get more calls on working days. And during holiday season towards the end of the year, during Diwali season, the call volumes go down a little, but we haven't seen that impact as of now. While it is -- the holiday season hasn't really started. In fact, we have seen a slight [indiscernible] in the overall numbers. I wouldn't be able to give a onto a quantitative outlook as I just said. But we have seen some [indiscernible] in the last 2, 3 months. Maybe you can consider that we are a company who has some lead indicators. And we do see some balance in the overall market sentiment as well as numbers. And the current form volumes, they are not rarely increased. They're not too different than last year or last half. Having said that, the bulk of the increase is to India only. Although as a percentage, very small ways are interacting might have grown by whatever, like a very large number, 30%, 40%, 50% or more. But bulk of the increase is grown.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#39

No, got it. So what I was -- so can we take this as like a base on which we will grow now? Like, for example, last 4 quarters, if I see, we did about 4,700 calls in Q3, then we did about 5,000 calls and then 4,800 last quarter and 5,600 or thereabouts in this quarter. So like in that sense, sequentially, it's been a decent...

Gaurav Munjal executive
#40

Light [indiscernible], but not high growth is what I can say right now.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#41

Got it. Got it. So can we take this as a base on which we can grow further? Or like you see this could be volatile and it can be grow also here and there?

Gaurav Munjal executive
#42

As I said, I mean, it depends. I mean, how our clients in the sense that if a guidance on...

Unknown Analyst analyst
#43

I'm saying given whatever you are seeing, of course, that is depending on the current numbers.

Gaurav Munjal executive
#44

Yes, the [indiscernible], how December will pan out, how good or bad it will be, there have been some December over the last 10 years, where we actually acted better than November, right? So we have seen that as well, but it's very rare.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#45

Okay. Got it. And just...

Gaurav Munjal executive
#46

Usually last 10 days of December and first 10 days of Jan and about 8, 10 days of Diwali, will see subdued number of calls. So that is almost like 15% of working days, right? So -- and the 50% see slight decrease, obviously, it has to be a little subdued. But we've also seen earlier that Feb, March really picks up. If it happens this year, -- it didn't happen last year. It happened unexpectedly better the year previous to that. So I mean, this still a very small company to have a base where we can predict, right? So if you see in FY '25, there was almost a 20% increase in the second half, right? And in the last year, it was a 10%-ish decrease or slightly 7%, 8% decrease. So I don't think we have a sample enough to really predict how December, Jan and Feb, March will pan out. If -- what I can say that is the police growing and we see the balance which we have seen for the last 2, 3 months. I'm hopeful it should get better.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#47

Got it. And just 2 more questions. So this -- in the overseas market and HUKSA, so you said HUKSA doubled from like H1 to H1, if I heard you right.

Gaurav Munjal executive
#48

Yes, yes, you are right. It's written as well.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#49

Okay. So overseas, I think last add about INR 2 crores U.S. and Middle East and add about INR 1 crore. So -- so like on this small base, is this growth -- is that -- I mean, are you happy with this growth? Or you think like this growth will sort of -- I mean, given...

Gaurav Munjal executive
#50

So the dynamics for HUKSA, the dynamics for U.S. and the dynamics for Middle East and EU are 3 different animals, right? HUKSA is a new business. We've invested discovering the fit. So there will be volatility depending upon what we try U.S. business more predictable. The size is there. I think the growth -- we may not -- it be happy. I mean we have a tale we wanted to be at a certain number, we wouldn't start. So we've already increased our presence there. We steadily increasing the numbers in India as well. So we will share the numbers in the year-end. And for MENA also, we are reasonably happy. EU is again where MENA was when we started that place. So we proactively started EU. At a small base, yes, the numbers are -- I mean, it's still -- they're still not meaningful enough. That's why I haven't spent too much time in there. But as a trend, I think it really works. But in a marketplace scenario, the base is not as relevant as the liquidity of the marketplace, right? So in the very initial few years of establishing a marketplace in a new geography or a new domain for that matter, you are not able to have enough number of preexisting experts, right? So which is what our target is in U.S. So once we reach a certain number, it really grows much faster even at a percentage level. So more often than not, how it works with most steady-state businesses or pipe-based businesses, as you say, is the lower the base, the higher the growth. In a market-based business, the initial stage is almost flat, and you keep trying to see in the marketplace after you see it to a level, the growth can be very fast. So we are hoping to see that number within a few years. But the fact that in the marketplace scenario, a low base implies high growth is not entirely back.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#51

Okay. Okay. Got it. And just last question is 1 on the cost base. So if I see sequentially, employee costs have gone up from INR 11 crores to INR 13 crores, you mentioned that the cost base is broadly set now. So do you think like from here on, it will be more linear kind of cost increases. I am -- the reason for this question is because we are building almost 2 new businesses or 3 new businesses, if you will.

Gaurav Munjal executive
#52

We would increase the cost base for the core India business, actually as a percentage of cost, it may actually be going down.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#53

No. At a consolidated level, like what kind of...

Gaurav Munjal executive
#54

If you keep on trying new things, you'll definitely have to increase the cost base. Anything which includes the world, AI, anything which includes the oral U.S. is exceptionally costly. But what I can say confidently that for our India business is the cost base for servicing and getting the same amount of revenue as a percentage of revenue is to go down, but the rest of it might increase.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#55

Okay. And finally, then on your main board transition, any thoughts? I mean, I think we complete 3 year we completed...

Gaurav Munjal executive
#56

We are planning for it. I think we should be able to qualify this year. We changed the criteria. So we just had to get 1 more year.

Operator operator
#57

Next question is from the line of Kiran Kumar Manjunath. [Operator Instructions]

Unknown Analyst analyst
#58

Okay. I hope you are able to hear us. Gaurav, I have 2 questions. First of all, as you spoke about strategic investment in 1 of the company. Can you please explain how it really integrate or how do you envision that adding to the business growth of our company?

Gaurav Munjal executive
#59

Sorry, can you please repeat the question? I lost the first...

Unknown Analyst analyst
#60

[indiscernible] about a strategic investment in the company where you're buying a 19% stake.

Gaurav Munjal executive
#61

Okay. Okay. Okay. Yes. So to be honest, materially, it's a very small part. Second, we are exploring the marketplace in the engineering services domain. This investment as a stand-alone financial investment, we believe, is a good investment. Second, we are exploring the implementation and engineering services, and we are hoping that we should be able to get more idea about this side of our business from that investment. Okay. [indiscernible] in energy sector, heat pumps, installations, planning, engineering, design, et cetera, et cetera.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#62

Okay. My second question is Considering the landscape and the competitive intensity, especially in the technological aspect, is there possibility that smaller player will fold up and then our market share and we're becoming a dominant player is a scenario what you foresee or we expect more competition to be there in the foreseeable future.

Gaurav Munjal executive
#63

No. From a technological standpoint, yes, as good as the global guys, it's not probably the best or better than them. Will the smaller players have to upgrade their tech to meet the requirements of the large global players? Probably yes. They will write on to the aggregators or meta search engines as what we call. There is going to be always a long tail in the custom recruitment part, but we strongly believe, and we've completely aligned ourselves to the notion that in a marketplace, there should be 1 exceptionally dominant player, which we want to be in India.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#64

Sir, my question was a bit different. Are you seeing the long-tail facing challenges to adapt and folding up, which will help the dominant player get more market share?

Gaurav Munjal executive
#65

This is actual asset. So the tech is not easy to manage by the smaller players, especially those who are focused more on custom recruitment. They may use some aggregators, but for large players, it is not possible to work through aggregators, large payers means large clients, where we think we will have an advantage. There is always going to be a long tail but there is still scope for more consolidation in the market. I will not use the word folding up because there is always scope for [indiscernible].

Operator operator
#66

Next follow-up question is from line of Sonal Minas. [Operator Instructions]

Unknown Analyst analyst
#67

Gaurav, regarding capital prudence, basically, which is linked to the question somebody was asking about your investments in that Thermo pump company. I think there are 2 points I want to highlight and I want to make. First is on the savings that you are making in the India business, which is the P&L linked part that whatever savings you are making in the India business, I think those savings, if, let's say, they are 1% to 2% on -- as a percentage of top line, we need to embark and ring fence how much of those savings are being burned into new businesses that we are doing. The proportion of the 2 needs to be similar from a financial discipline perspective, that's 1. Second, also, the fact that the investments you're making, they are not directly linked to what you are doing right now. So I think you have a metrics that you can say that have raised, let's say, ex CR from my I want to experiment with maybe 2, 3, 5 CR with things which are not related to my business. The balance, I'm going to actually invest in things which are related to my business, which may be M&A, which may be sequentially whatever you're doing in AI even in your business. I think that clarity needs to be brought about to the investor pool because when margins drop and when margins drop sequentially across 3, 4 years, -- there is a fair bit of understanding, I think that needs to be given to people to understand that this is not a one-way street from here on.

Abhishek Jha executive
#68

Go ahead.

Gaurav Munjal executive
#69

So I'm not -- this is more of a comment as opposed to a question. But still, I would say that at the start of our previous year, we had given our complete what I call it our thesis thought process on what we are trying to do. And -- so this is what you can see. So while we may not be able to quantify 1%, 2% of top line or -- at this stage, but we have definitely give a broad sense of what we are trying to invest in, right? So in HR services, especially -- so this is all -- this is from NSE website directly. Everyone can have a look. This was accorded I think almost 2 years ago, Abhishek or 1.5 years ago. And even before the margin thing happened. So as of now, this is what we have in mind. This is where we are going to spend the bulk of it. And from a strategic interest perspective, we have clearly outlined this is what we want to do from an investment/acquisition perspective, which we have clearly outlined this is what we want to do. And from a building within the company perspective also, we have said that this is what we want to do. This was HUKSA, before HUKSA even became meaningful. We have been following this, but we've been following this stable for a while now. Now the issue is that whatever we want to do is not always available. And obviously, we can't do all of those things. So we are exploring a lot of things. And anything which is available and started making sense. This is our broad perspective on it. As you can see, HUKSA is -- which we are building from an incubation perspective is where we intend to spend the maximum of money. Any gig marketplace, we believe is -- which is this where it is premium, even better. If it is blue collar, it's not something which is right in our alley. But if you see that we have already given much, much before our interest from that perspective here is what I'm [indiscernible]

Unknown Analyst analyst
#70

No, no. I think this is actually a very good document. I think the idea is ring-fencing from a financial discipline perspective, that's all I was trying to do. This is actually a great at.

Gaurav Munjal executive
#71

From a financial perspective, I've given some numbers is what I'm saying.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#72

Got it. And second question can I jump to...

Gaurav Munjal executive
#73

Not quantitive numbers, but indicated numbers are given.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#74

Okay. So I think concluding on this, is there an inference on saying that I am saving x percentage on my India business because of scale, because of market share, because of efficiency. I am maybe going to use that for building new businesses, and therefore, I can ring-fence this? Or is that something which is too premature right now to put in numbers? Is it what I basically you want to [indiscernible].

Gaurav Munjal executive
#75

There will be some decisions which will be made on the plant, the reason I have not -- so, anything which is public market -- sorry, anything which is liquid and is [indiscernible] invested in money markets. So that a few crores is definitely going into newer investments, right? So just to give you a broad sense, I've shared that earlier as well. So a couple of crores new business, definitely there. We have a reasonably big cash pile. The highest probability of deploying that cash pile will be this. Now the problem is we would like to deploy, but there should be availability. So from a strategic interest perspective, it is exceptionally high for us as you can see I have highlighted. And from a monetary perspective, we can go really, really aggressive if we are able to get the acquisition, right?

Unknown Analyst analyst
#76

No, I completely understand that. yes. There is a lag between when you want to do and when things happen.

Gaurav Munjal executive
#77

Right, right. So when we want to do and what is relevant? So just to give you some quantitative sense, -- any return on money market investments, liquid investments, definitely going into high risk ones AI. It depends how the market behaves. If we find the opportunity, we'll go aggressive. As of now, we have made it mediate in there, we would sit on the sidelines. We would not invest in any cash [indiscernible] business in AI, but if we believe there is a reasonable ROI, we would go for it, right? So that is, again, as we mentioned in the annual report. HUKSA, it is going to be a steady investment. We'll continue to build that. We have seen positive offshoots. There's absolutely no reason to hold back. Maybe 1%, maybe more, but that's the broad range. So I hope it answers the top 3, 4 answer questions.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#78

Yes. It does. It does. Thanks for explaining even the fact that whatever interest you're running -- that is something which is in marked for high-risk investment. And the other you are trying to quantify, but still early days. The second question I have, Gaurav.

Gaurav Munjal executive
#79

Most of it will go here. Just FYI. Most of it will go ahead. from the cash pile perspective, international expansion. Unless AI offers a compelling use.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#80

Got it. Got a second question. You were mentioning to Rohit, who is a question asked earlier, that there is a -- you can't predict the nonlinearity in an expert network, and everybody believes in expert network. At some point in time, has some semblance of nonlinearity because you can't put a time line to it, but I'm not even asking you to project some numbers, but let's say, from a realistic perspective, let's say, 3 to 5 years out, do you see this nonlinearity playing where your top line can be 3 to 5x compared to now? Well, that's too difficult for you to even comment on right now. Because see, at your scale, if you are doing penetrative pricing, you are gaining market share. You are launching new businesses. And you have a vision of, let's say, the marketplace playing out, there has to be some understanding of when and how this non-linearity plays out. if it plays out at all or not. So I just want to understand that because I hope you understand the investors, by and large, looking basically chasing growth. So -- if you say nonlinearity, then there is an alert that we build in or try to understand from a 3-, 5-year perspective. So long question, but I just want to understand this from a 3-, 5-year perspective.

Gaurav Munjal executive
#81

In some of my previous calls, I mentioned that what we believe that is somewhere around 5,000 to 10,000, geoexpert combo a geodomain combo, we see that happening when we cross the first 60%, 70% or 50% piece. Once we cross the 50% piece. Then what happens is it starts feeding into the older ones. This plan patent experts. So custom impairments, the more you throw the more resources you provided, the more money noted increases, but as they say that we have to be smart enough to let go where it doesn't make sense, but at the same time, keep building the network, which can pay back later. So now your specific question was that how do you predict 3 to 5 years down the line? Well, if you're able to what we are thinking, there would definitely be some sudden jump. And our eventual unit is that our international business is definitely going to be bigger than our India business. Now it is going to be at its time, I'm still not sure -- the size of the market is if not 100 now, not 100, maybe but at least 40, 50x. So the potential to gain that market is definitely there. When do we hit the linearity, whether do we hit the linearity, we are definitely aiming for it. We shouldn't be able to do that at some point of time. I don't have the tools to predict right now.

Unknown Analyst analyst
#82

But you don't see that happening in India business where you're doing penetrative pricing basically as we speak, because you are gaining market share, directionally, you would do more penetrative pricing and you will gain more market share. So specific to India business, it's not the international business. So do you see that business...

Gaurav Munjal executive
#83

India business? No, I don't see only -- it is going to be a steady growth as our client grows, we are always a derivative business of our overall clients. There might be some on legality in the public market part. In India, the public market investors don't really use high-end research services. At this stage, the entire research market would probably be INR 100 crores. If we remove the...

Unknown Analyst analyst
#84

But more of the same -- more of the sale basically because you are absorbing market share. So when you absorb market share, you're trying to build a 2-engine both engine?

Gaurav Munjal executive
#85

Yes. So in public markets, we believe that at a certain price point, if we are able to aggregate demand and bring down the cost for our clients while keeping the same number for our experts, there could be some sudden jump. Essentially, what I'm saying is that as India adopts, to higher research number as a percentage. See, there are no MiFID regulations in India right now. So most of the research is done by brokers. So independent research is feel are between players of those research, they don't really see value. So the entire public market research is a small part. In consulting, this is fairly penetrated. We can just gain market share, which we have a reasonable amount right now, we're getting -- get more dominant, but we don't see a sudden -- in private equity, this is reasonably penetrated. There is some scope for improvement there. We will be gaining market share. We've been trying for that. But again, I don't see a nonlinear growth there. But in public markets, the adoption is so low as of now, that there is scope.

Operator operator
#86

Next follow-up question is from line of Rohit Balkrishna. We lost the connection for Rohit. Next question is from line of Himanshi Narang. [Operator Instructions]

Unknown Analyst analyst
#87

Gaurav, this is Himanshi from Dalmia Group Holdings. I would like to understand out while you are in [indiscernible] the different consulting companies that are your primary customers, are you seeing any trend in the declining spend by the consulting companies for these export calls or, say, any cut in budget or what is the trend going forward?

Gaurav Munjal executive
#88

Sorry, at a per project level or percentage of sorry, spend as a percentage of revenue, I don't think there is any meaningful change. Having said that, I don't have the precise numbers. But at a per project level, we haven't seen anything.

Operator operator
#89

Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take that as a last question. I now hand the conference over to the management for the closing remarks.

Gaurav Munjal executive
#90

So that should be it then. So thank you so much. Thank you, everyone, for participating. I hope we were able to answer all your questions. If there are still more questions, happy to address them. You can share it with our team or with Valorem team directly as well. Our team directly or with Valorem team, we do organize our investors calls once in a while, I would be glad to address them as they are there. Thank you so much for your interest in Infollion, Wonderful to have you guys.

Operator operator
#91

Thank you very much. On behalf of Infollion Research Services Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us, and you may now leave the meeting and disconnect your lines. Thank you.

Gaurav Munjal executive
#92

Thank you so much.

Operator operator
#93

Thank you all.

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