Cercle X Revenue & Funding (2024)

Cercle X closed December 2022 with approximately $1,010,000 in monthly revenue, implying a $12.1 million annualized run rate. That compares to roughly $100,000 per month one year earlier, representing approximately 900% year-over-year growth. Vardhaan confirmed the December figure directly, stating "December, we closed at $1,010,000."

Cercle X had approximately 1,000 paying customers at the time of the interview. The customer base includes small and medium-sized companies as well as multinational corporations and consumer packaged goods companies with manufacturing operations across India. Vardhaan described the target market as approximately 4,500 large brands doing manufacturing in India.

Pricing for the pure-play SaaS product ranges from $399 to $497 per location per month. Most multinational customers operate three to four factory locations in India, producing an average monthly contract value of roughly $1,200 to $1,600 per customer at the high end. Vardhaan stated the average contract value across the full customer base, which includes smaller companies with one or two facilities, is between $800 and $1,200 per month. The host calculated $800 per month times 1,000 customers as $800,000 per month in SaaS revenue alone, and Vardhaan confirmed that framing.

The scrap marketplace app has been downloaded by over 45,000 users since its 2021 launch. Of those, more than 25,000 have completed at least one transaction, an activation rate Vardhaan described as strong. The remaining users primarily access the app to monitor daily commodity scrap prices across India. Cercle X currently channels approximately 0.1% of the waste available across India and has set a target of reaching 10% market share.

Cercle X operates a two-sided business model. The larger segment, approximately 60% of revenue, is pure-play SaaS software sold to brands on a per-location, per-month basis. The remaining 40% of revenue comes from marketplace transaction fees charged as a percentage of GMV flowing through the scrap marketplace app.

The SaaS product carries gross margins of 75% to 85%, as stated by Vardhaan. The marketplace segment generates between $45,000 and $225,000 per month depending on where transaction fees fall within the 1% to 5% range, which varies with scrap commodity prices and supply-demand dynamics. Monthly GMV through the marketplace reached $4,500,000 in December 2022, based on 9,000 metric tons processed at an average of $500 per metric ton.

The company reported being EBITDA-positive at the time of its December 2021 fundraise. Vardhaan's response to a question about profitability was a smile and an implicit confirmation, but he did not state a specific profit figure or margin. With 42 employees and a $12.1 million annualized revenue run rate, the company generates approximately $285,000 in revenue per employee. Vardhaan noted that average employee cost in India is roughly $60,000 to $80,000 per year, implying strong unit economics, though a precise profit margin was not disclosed.

Cercle X had 42 full-time employees at the time of the January 2023 interview, all based in India across multiple locations. The engineering and technology team comprises approximately 12 people, with 4 to 5 of those focused specifically on the Web3 and blockchain components of the platform.

The team is internationally diverse. The CTO relocated from Ghana to India to join the company, and team members from Syria and other countries are also part of the organization. Vardhaan attributed the team's commitment to a shared belief that waste management is central to addressing climate change.