eMudhra - building seamless digital and paperless experiences

[dpatel]

This topic is to talk about the recently listed, one of its kind company named “eMudhra”.

About the company
What We Do
We help enterprises large and small build seamless digital and paperless experiences with their clients for data and document movement through a combination of our document processing automation, AI and data security platforms while leveraging our global trust services infrastructure.

Who We Work with
We work with large customers, several banks and startups to help build seamless customer journeys that eliminate paper and leverage data for real time insights and decisions. Clients include, Infosys, LTI, Tata, Aditya Birla, Barti AXA, mashreq, chola MS general insurance, JSW, etc…

Competitive Strengths:
eMudhra Limited is India’s largest licenced Certifying Authority (“CA”). The company’s business is divided into two verticles Digital Trust Services and Enterprise Solutions. eMudhra Limited is engaged in the business of providing services like individual/organizational certificates, digital signature certificates, SSL/TLS certificates and device certificates, a portfolio of digital security and paperless transformation solutions, multi-factor authentication, mobile application security, website security testing, IT policy assessment, etc.

• Largest licensed Certifying Authority in India.
• The company is a one-stop shop solution provider in secure digital transformation and is well-positioned to capture the favourable industry dynamics in India and globally.
• Technology certifications, accreditations and membership in international bodies.
• Technology backed infrastructure to support quality and security of services and solutions.
• Diverse, longstanding and growing customer base.
• Partnerships with leading Indian and global channel partners and enterprise solution partners.
• Experienced promoter, board of directors and senior management team.
• Licensed Certifying Authority under CCA – Govt. Of India and Govt. Of Mauritius and Govt. Of UAE
• One of the very few global Full Service Vendors in eSignature Workflow Management with Enterprise Delivery capability

Peer Group
Global Peers (Not an exhaustive list)

1. Adobe Systems Incorporated
2. Entrust Corporation
3. DigiCert Inc.
4. DocuSign Inc.
5. Nexus Group
6. Sectigo
7. PrimeKey Solutions AB
   Indian Peers (Not an exhaustive list)
8. Capricorn Identity Services Private Ltd.
9. Verasys Technologies Private Limited (V Sign)
10. Sify Technologies
11. NSDL e-Gov Infrastructure Limited
12. Pantagon Sign Securities Private Limited (Pantasign)

Competitive Profiling

Products

1. emSigner – eSignature Workflow
2. emCA – Certificate Lifecycle Management
3. emAS – Authentication and Access Management

Subsidiaries
Company has eight Subsidiaries, two Indian subsidiaries, and six foreign subsidiaries

1. eMudhra Technologies Limited;
2. eMudhra Consumer Services Limited;
3. eMudhra (MU) Ltd;
4. eMudhra DMCC;
5. eMudhra INC;
6. eMudhra PTE Ltd;
7. eMudhra BV; and
8. PT eMudhra Technologies, Indonesia.

Financials (Consolidated)

Key Developments in Digital Payments, India

Sources: IPO RHP, Company Website, chittorgarh.com

PS: I am a newbie here, so pardon my mistakes, if any. Also I don’t know how to do financial modeling or valuation exercise. So request experts to chime in here.

[jay_adiyecha]

List of certifying companies having license for digital signature certificate in India - Ministry Of Corporate Affairs - Certifying Authorities

[jay_adiyecha]

Scuttlebutt details for research:

How digital signature actually works (internal technical details):

Digital signature

How to buy digital signature from eMudhra:

Online Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) | Apply for e-sign in 5 minutes and get in 2 hours #DSC

[Lajja_Shah]

Another great company with great products and a pretty good market share.

[Lajja_Shah]

[ameydesai]

thanks a lot for posting the results here. However there seems to be unusual interest in the stock of this company 2-3 days post results. Does Mr. Market know anything that we don’t?

[Zaki_Ahmad]

25% + growth is expected in next 2-3 years. EBITDA margin will remain around 40%.

[iValueInvestor]

Interesting bit of things happened post Q1 numbers. Price Movement was rather steep and it looks like some of the very important KMPs have sold almost all of their holdings in this rally. This certainly does not gives me any comfort now as a shareholder.

exchange Filings of the open market sell :

One of them is the CTO of the company. One is CS and other one is SVP-head of Sales.

Views Invited.

[akash_das]

How are these people selling in market? Why are their shares not locked for 6months from the time of IPO?

Mr. Venkatraman Srinivasan was the MD and CEO of 3i Infotech Ltd. They binged on foreign currency convertible bonds to make several acquisitions in the services space and failed to integrate the acqusitions and couldn’t pay off its creditors. Assets were disposed off and the shares were dumped on public.

Bidders drop out as 3i Infotech’s debt mounts to Rs 2,000 crore

eMudhra was originally incorporated as ‘3i Infotech Consumer Services Limited,’ as a wholly owned subsidiary of 3i Infotech Limited. Pursuant to an acquisition by Indus Innovest Technologies Private Limited, the name was changed to ‘eMudhra Consumer Services Limited’. The name was further changed to ‘eMudhra Limited’ on October 21, 2014.
MD and CEO is the same person as 3i Infotech. All KMPs have started selling and exiting. It may have the same fate as 3i Infotech.

https://archives.nseindia.com/annual_reports/AR_3IINFOTECH_2009_2010_05102010120000.zip

SEBI | eMudhra Limited - Prospectus

[Lajja_Shah]

Great Result!!!

[Dev_S]

Segmental performance

Few additional points (H1 23 vs FY 22)

• Trust Svc FY 22 was 84.5 cr - Q1 was 19, H1 23 is 41 - Q2 is 22 - mgmt did indicate Q1 is leaner and gains as as year progresses
• Enterprise India FY 22 was 63 cr, H1 23 is 31 cr
• Enterprise global FY 22 was 35 cr, H1 23 is 38 Cr

Net net growth driver has been Enterprise global which has nearly done last year whole in H1 this year, also note this is relatively higher margin than Enterprise India biz.

While growth in global enterprise biz is commendable by nearly 2X in current circumstances, it would be useful to understand how pipeline is looking and deal size etc. Would be keen to understand India (Trust + Enterprise) growth expectations as H1 is more or less flattish/mild growth - given rich valuations, its imp to have both engines firing well(India and global) for future.

[Lajja_Shah]

[JR_R]

Some notes from Jan 23 concall -

• Margins were lower QoQ because of expansion in foreign markets. Have hired people (increase in sales cost) but expect sales to follow in 6-9 months. FY24 margings can also be muted for same reason - impact 1-2% lower
• 3 products under developments. One of them is 95% completed and other 2 would be launched in FY24Q1
• Pricing pressure on trust business upto 35%. This was offset by SSL growth. Overall, flattish.
• Continues to be bullish on enterprise business - expect revenue growth of 35-40%
• USP in comparison to docusign/abode is eMudhara is identify based. So, plays in these sectors like BFSI, Pharma and Insurance

Technically, charts look weak. At a PE of 33 and market cap < 2000 Cr, this still looks expensive. Thoughts?

[Lajja_Shah]

• Launched Trust Services in Kenya and acquired a state owned entity in Indonesia.
• The company has three new products under development: Certificate Discovery, IOT Certificate, and Remote Signing. Certificate Discovery is almost fully developed and has already received a large order from a public sector bank in India.
• Guidance: Q4 will likely maintain margins. In FY24, margins might reduce by 1-2% due to office and recruitment costs in foreign countries where office have opened which involve US, Qatar, Saudi Arabia & Kenya.
• They guided in Q2 that H2 will have margins of 38-40% which is actually the case.

[hiteshchauhanca]

Q4FY23 CONCALL NOTES:

• Closing order book increased from Rs. 76.9 crores to Rs. 118 crores.
• Net cash and cash equivalents increased to 1,193 million.
  (Now, emudhra inc has acquired 51% ownership interest of Ikon Tech Services LLC, a Houston, USA based cyber security and digital transformation solution and services company for a consideration of US $6.12 million.)
• The company is focusing on online retail, moving away from the earlier model of selling to master partners to a larger subset of sub-partners.
• The company has significant differentiators, such as offering all types of eSign and full in-house technology for partner management and fulfillment.
• The company’s strategies for future growth include focusing on IP development and services to cater to zero trust, investing in geographic expansion, focusing on platform partnerships, and penetrating SSL, TLS certificates directly.
• Three products under development: emDiscovery, remote signing product, and IoT Certificate Management Product.

[Lajja_Shah]

Emudhra AR 2022-23 Notes

Chairman’s Message:

As organizations are becoming more aware and building preventive measures around management of vulnerabilities, computing capacities are constantly being enhanced, and the consumer demand for digitization that is ‘easy to use’ is on the rise, eMudhra’s portfolios are more relevant than ever in helping organizations survive and scale in this new business environment.

At the core of zero-trust principles lie the necessity to establish trusted digital identities, authenticate and manage identities and access, and the need for establishing accountability for legally binding actions taken by employees; all of which are areas where we are formidably well positioned.

We have simplified our Indian Digital Signature platform. Through eMudhra One, we have allowed for a user-friendly co-existence of personal and professional identities, digital signatures, and eSign services all in a single app and web interface. We recently launched our Certificate Lifecycle Management platform which already boasts some noteworthy clients.

On the eSignature Workflow side of things, emSigner continues to grow in more markets, with more marquee clients, and more functionalities as we evolve. From powering pharmaceutical use cases, to facilitating retail PoS, ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ schemes, emSigner has grown in maturity and relevance across industries. ‘emSigner for Banks’ is also further evolving as we continue to acquire leading Banks in the International markets. eMudhra is also now the only entity to support all forms of eSign in India. This, paired with our eStamping portfolio and easy integration and technical adoption methodologies give us tremendous competitive edge to compete locally and internationally.

International markets saw 141% growth YOY which contributes 35.8% to total revenue. We received our eCSP License to operate as a CA in Kenya. We implemented a large-scale retail lending use case with a popular retail chain in North America. We have acquired some marquee clients and key partners in Indonesia and continue to service more PKI use cases in Europe. Our Middle East & Africa Business prospects continue to grow.

Future Opportunities: Homomorphic encryption is a cryptographic technique that allows computations to be performed on encrypted data without the need for decryption. Identified by eMudhra as the future of privacy preserving cryptography, we are working on bring this encryption standard to the market to safeguard day-to-day operations in an increasingly digital world. The commercial potential behind this technology is immense! Considering the importance of data encryption in a world where breaches increase by the day, and security compliance is becoming core to large organizations, eMudhra believes this technology will be a game changer in how organizations work in the future.

Future Strategy: Maintain leadership in Indian Trust Services market and capitalize on industry opportunities. Leveraging existing data centre infrastructure and set up new data centres in India and overseas locations. The Company has also implemented data center project in Bangalore and disaster recovery center in Chennai. These centers are expected to cater to the growing needs of the customers for the next five years. The Company will be implementing its overseas data center in 2023. Enhance solution offerings to tap growing needs of digital transformation. Grow presence in overseas markets. Expand share of revenues among existing customers and broaden our partner network and customer base.

Enterprise Solutions: Closing Order book increased from 76.9 crores to 118 crores in FY23. There is significant repeat business from existing customers. Saw strong growth in international markets. More revenue comes from direct relationships with customers. Revenues come from 3 sectors: Government, Private Sector and BFSI. Cyber Security is a higher contributor to revenue than paperless solutions. During the year under review, we have added 156 new enterprise customers and added 50 enterprise partners.

Trust Services: Strong focus on “brand” positioning, retail customer acquisition, broad basing of partner network and issuance of eSign/SSL certificates to drive recurring revenue growth.

Ratios: D/E ratio is now 0 as all the debt has been repaid after IPO proceeds were received. There is an increase in Trade Receivables turnover ratio and decrease in Trade Payables Turnover ratio which means there is quicker business growth and quicker payment to hardware creditors. Efficient WC management has increased Net Capital Turnover from 1.37 to 4.05 times. Margins have reduced due to increased brand building, marketing and employee cost.

COGS: Cost of goods sold on a consolidated basis marginally increased from 22.7% in FY 2022 to 23.6% as a percentage in FY 2023 to the total income of the respective year.

Employee Cost: Our employee cost has marginally reduced as a percentage of total revenue from 25.9% to 25.3% in the fiscal 2023 on consolidated basis.

Depreciation/Amortization: Our depreciation/amortization expense as a percentage of total income has decreased from 7.1% to 6.2% on consolidated basis.

Cash and cash equivalents: Our cash and cash equivalents comprise of balance with current account, deposit accounts and overnight funds with mutual fund houses. The closing cash and cash equivalents are INR 1194.35 million and INR 663.70 million on consolidated and standalone basis respectively.

[Sambhav_Jain]

Can anyone help me on understanding the standalone and consolidated results for emudhra.

If I see standalone results for Q4 march’23 sales was 77cr and net profit is 16cr. But if I check consolidated results for Q4 sales were showing 44 cr and net profit around 4cr.

Consolidated results means results of all subsidiaries. So how total sales in consilated were less then the standalone sales?

Can anyone please help on that query. I am not understanding.
Thank You

[Lajja_Shah]

[Lajja_Shah]

79 cr and 16 cr are consolidated.

[parth_agrawal]

My take on the FY24 Q1 result:

• Revenue growth continues to be robust. There overseas expansion is bearing fruit on topline front.
• Margin compression for future growth is acceptable but management has been saying that margin compression is due to costly hiring for overseas expansion but the same is not getting reflected in employee cost as % of revenue, as it is hovering around 25% in last 5 quarters whereas in last 5 quarters margins have contracted by 10%. Need to further look to identify the reason.

Below is concall summary