Licious Business Model: How Does Licious Make Money?

The Licious business model earns money by buying meat and seafood from farms and fishermen, processing and chilling it in its own facilities, and selling it directly to customers through its app, dark-store delivery network and its own outlets, keeping the margin between its sourcing and processing costs and the price shoppers pay. In FY26 it reported net revenue of ₹1,166 crore, but it is still burning cash at the EBITDA level. Some figures differ by source, which I’ve flagged.

Quick Facts

The Short Answer

Licious is a retailer that owns the supply chain behind the shelf.

• Inc42 describes a farm-to-fork model in which Licious owns the full backend supply chain
• It sells fresh meat and seafood to consumers, online and now offline
• Its profit comes from the gap between what it pays and what customers pay, minus the cost of running a cold chain
• That cold chain is both its moat and its biggest cost

How It Makes Money

The earnings come from selling products, not from commissions.

• Online sales: orders through its own app and website, delivered from dark stores and delivery hubs, around ₹1,000 crore in FY26
• Offline outlets: branded stores, which grew from ₹26 crore to ₹177 crore in FY26 and act as discovery and trust-building points, according to BW Disrupt
• Repeat consumption: repeat customers made up 94% of the business, and omnichannel users spend more than digital-only buyers, with repeat orders generating 30% higher average revenue per user, according to a company statement in FY25
• A third-party investor page claims gross margins of 35–45% on some channels, but its table is incomplete and I couldn’t verify it

The Numbers

Growth has outrun losses in percentage terms.

• Net revenue rose 47% to ₹1,166 crore from ₹795 crore, the company’s highest-ever, according to Inc42 and Entrackr
• Online grew 28% to about ₹1,000 crore, and offline grew nearly sevenfold
• Offline was about 15% of revenue and online about 86%, by my arithmetic
• The company’s target for FY27 is ₹1,800 crore

The Loss Picture

The rupee burn rose, but the ratio improved.

• EBITDA burn was ₹187 crore in FY26, against ₹168 crore a year earlier, as it invested in infrastructure and offline expansion
• FY25’s loss is quoted as ₹163 crore in a company statement reported by Business Standard and ₹168 crore in the later release, so the base differs
• Relative to revenue, the burn was about 16% in FY26 against about 21% in FY25, my arithmetic
• A January 2026 report said FY26 EBITDA losses were expected at around ₹150–160 crore, so the actual figure was higher than that expectation
• The net loss for FY25 was ₹218.3 crore, down 27%, according to Inc42

The Cold-Chain Model

The infrastructure is what makes the product possible.

• One investor report describes a hub model with a central processing facility in each city and multiple dark-store delivery hubs
• Licious has raised about $490 million, which the same report says went mainly into processing facilities, cold-chain warehouses, refrigerated vehicles and quality labs
• Those costs are largely fixed, so profitability depends on volume per hub
• The company added 50 new delivery hubs in FY25 and plans to scale its dark-store network from 130 to around 400 over the next several years, according to Entrackr

Offline Expansion

Stores are a growing second leg.

• Licious had crossed 50 branded outlets in FY25, including stores under the My Chicken and More brand it acquired in February of that fiscal year
• It planned 80 to 100 outlets by the end of FY26, according to CB Insights, though I couldn’t verify the final count
• BW Disrupt calls the stores discovery and trust-building centres that complement its digital operations
• Micro-market plans: 10 in FY27, scaling to 120 across the top seven cities over five years, according to Entrackr

Repeat Customers

The business depends on regular buyers.

• 94% repeat customers and more than 1.5 million monthly active users are the headline figures
• Meat is a frequent-purchase category, which supports a delivery network if orders cluster densely
• Omnichannel customers, who use both app and outlet, are described as more valuable

IPO and Valuation

Timing is uncertain.

• Licious was last valued at $1.5 billion in a 2023 round, according to Business Standard, and Tracxn lists a valuation of ₹12,100 crore from September 2023
• Reports in 2025 said it planned to start the IPO process in 2026, while an investor report says the IPO was deferred to 2027–28 until EBITDA profitability, which I couldn’t verify
• It had 2,828 employees as of May 2026, according to Tracxn

Risks

The model has real pressures.

• Perishable inventory, so wastage and freshness failures cost money
• Heavy fixed cost in cold chain, with the burn rate depending on order density
• Competition from quick-commerce players and local butchers, though the sources I found don’t size it
• Continuing losses, and the FY26 burn was higher than expected

FAQs

Q1. How does Licious make money?

A. By selling fresh meat and seafood from its own supply chain, online and through outlets, earning the margin after sourcing, processing and delivery costs.

Q2. What was Licious’s FY26 revenue?

A. ₹1,166 crore, up 47% from ₹795 crore, with online around ₹1,000 crore and offline ₹177 crore.

Q3. Is Licious profitable?

A. Not yet. It reported an EBITDA burn of ₹187 crore in FY26, against ₹168 crore a year earlier.

Q4. When is the Licious IPO?

A. Reports said 2026, but one investor report says it’s deferred until profitability. No confirmed date appears in the sources I found.