Info Edge (India) Limited (NSE: NAUKRI) Q3 2026 Earnings Call dated Feb. 13, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Chintan Arvind Thakkar — Whole-time Director and Chief Financial Officer
Vineet Ranjan — Senior Vice President, Investor Relations
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Sachin — Analyst
Vijit Jain — Analyst
Swapnil — Analyst
Presentation:
Chintan Arvind Thakkar — Whole-time Director and Chief Financial Officer
The cash balance at the end of December 2025 stood at rupees 4825 crores. Given our inherent financial strength, consistent cash generation and well capitalized balance sheet, the Board has approved an increase in the dividend payout to enhance shareholder returns while retaining adequate capital to support business operations, investments and potential strategic acquisitions. The dividend payout ratio has been revised to up to 65% of PAT. Continuing our track record of progressively improving shareholder distributions. With last year’s payout at 39%, the board has also approved a second interim dividend of rupees 2.4 per share for the year. Moving on to segmental performance and starting with the recruitment business.
Standalone recruitment Billings grew by 11% to rupees 548 crore and revenue grew by 14% to 575 crores. Recruitment billings including Zweim and Dusela grew by 9% to rupees 565 crore and revenue grew by 12% to rupees 592 crores. The operating profit for the standalone recruitment Segment improved by 15% year on year to rupees 341crore and the operating profit margin was 59%. Cash generated from recruitment operations was rupees 373crores in the first nine months of FY2526. The standalone recruitment billings grew by 10% to rupees 15.64crore and revenue grew by 14% to rupees 16.75crores. Recruitment billings including Zweim and Duslect grew by 10% to rupees 1,623crores and revenue grew by 13% to rupees 17.35crore.
The operating profit for the standalone recruitment Segment improved by 12% year on year to rupees 937 crores and the operating profit margin was 56%. Cash generated from recruitment operations was rupees 894 crores. The hiring environment remains uncertain as evident from our Job Speak index as well. Despite this backdrop, the business delivered close to 10% year on year growth in billings in Q3 similar to the growth seen in Q2. Billing for the technology, IT and PPM segment combined grew at 14% year on year, GCCS grew at 13%, recruitment consultants grew at 5% and all the other sectors combined grew at 2%.
BFSI retail, infrastructure and consultant segments witnessed softness in growth whereas healthcare and manufacturing continue to grow in double digits. Knockley Jobseeker Services business reported rupees 39 crore in billing y growth of 17% with a 59% operating profit margin in Q3 of FY26. Naukri Gulf’s billing grew to rupees 34 crores, a yoy growth of 19% with a 33% operating margin in Q3 of FY26. Jobhair, which is currently operating primarily on a premium model and is focused on select markets, maintains strong platform metrics and continue to grow revenue on the job seeker front. The Naukri platform now hosts approximately 113 million resumes and added an average of around 20,000 resumes daily during Q3 of FY26.
Marketing expenses were significantly lower in Q3 compared to Q1 and Q2 and were flat on a YOY basis. In Naukri we continue to invest in job hair and other smaller businesses as a scale up monetization efforts. Therefore, the operating margins which saw Some moderation in Q1 to 53% improved by 330 basis points to 56% in Q2 and further improved by 350 basis points to over 59% in Q3. Excluding job hair, the recruitment margins were around 62% in the third quarter. Moving over to the real estate segment in Q3 of FY26 billings grew by 14% to Rs.117 crores and revenue also grew 14% to rupees 119 crore.
Operating losses were rupees 20 crore whereas cash losses from operations were rupees 10 crore. In Q3 of FY26 in the first nine months of this year billings grew by 15% to rupees three hundred and thirty four crores and revenue grew by 13% to rupees three hundred and forty four crores. Operating losses were rupees 63 crore and cash losses for operations were rupees 27 crores in the first nine months of FY26. The secondary business performed well in real estate while the primary segment remained relatively slower. We continue to gain fresh supply share across categories including residential, resale and rental as well as commercial spanning both the owner and broker segments, further strengthening our supply leadership.
Live resale cum rental listings from brokers grew 41% year on year while live new project listings increased 27% year on year. During the quarter our investments in the platform supported additional gains in traffic share with the quarterly average at 46% up from 44% in Q2. With consistent traffic share gains and accelerating response growth and mid teens billing growth in recent quarters we believe we’ve outpaced the market and continue to expand not just our traffic but our revenue share as well. Moving on to the matchmaking business in Q3 of FY26 Jeevan Saathi Billings grew by 29% to rupees 36 crores and revenue also grew by 28% to rupees 35 crore.
The business incurred an operating loss of rupees 2 crore and generated cash from operations of rupees 5 crores in Q3 of FY26. We acquired Aisle a few years ago and the business has since made good progress. We now own 100% of I’m reporting its performance alongside Jeevan Sati as part of our matchmaking portfolio. Jeevan Sati Plus IELTS reported Rs. 46 crores in billing, a YoY growth of 31% and the combined operating losses reduced by 60% to Rupees 4 crores in Q3. Both businesses are operating near break even now. In the first nine months of FY26 Jeevan Sati billings grew by 32% to rupees 104 crore and revenue also grew by 29% to rupees 102 crores.
The business incurred an operating loss of rupees 1 crore and generated cash from operations of 11 crores in the first nine months. Jeevan Sati plus aisle reported 132 crore in bidding, a yoy growth of 31% and combined operating losses reduced by 64% to rupees 8 crores in the first nine months of FY26. Jeevan Sati remained focused on improving sales conversions and arpus during the quarter. The market continues to be competitive with leading matrimony platforms, investing in marketing and offering higher than usual discounts. Aisle grew at 35% YoY during the quarter and Arike, the Kerala app, Malayalam focused app is growing at an even faster pace.
Moving on to our education business. In Q3 of FY26 billing was Rupees 46 crores, a YoY growth of 4% and revenue grew by 3% to Rupees 36 crores. The business incurred an operating loss of Rupees 1 crore and generated cash from operations of Rupees 17 crores in Q3 of FY26. In the first nine months of FY26 billing was Rupees one hundred and nineteen crore, a YoY growth of 7% and revenue grew by 14% to Rupees one hundred and twenty six crores. The business delivered an operating profit of Rupees 8 crores and generated cash from Operations of Rupees 11 crores in the first nine months of FY26.
The domestic Shiksha business continued to grow in billings whereas the study abroad business witnessed softness in Q3. The AI related impact is now very visible in the Shiksha domestic business and has led to a sharp drop in traffic. This will also impact billing growth over time. The business is strengthening its domestic counseling capabilities try to drive higher conversions from client responses to trudeau applications to mitigate the impact. It’s pivoting its business model but time will tell how this pans out. I would like to now take a few minutes to talk about how we are thinking about our growth strategy for across our businesses starting with recruitment.
We believe Naukri’s growth is driven by three variables overall hiring volume, our share of hiring and revenue per hire. Hiring on the platform can be broadly classified into three different segments premium hiring CTC of greater than 30 lakhs per annum, mid level hiring CTC between 5 and 30 lakhs per annum and the value segment of CTC less than 5 lakhs per annum. Across these segments we are working on increasing our hiring share and increasing our revenue per hire. In the premium segment, the overall market size is small but growing rapidly. Our hiring share this segment is growing faster.
We are working on this through targeted premium offerings such as KNOCKRI top tier alongside verticalized premium job boards like IM jobs for management roles for management hiring and high risk for specialized technology hiring. Revenue per hire is structurally higher in this segment and we see further headroom for improvement as long as we are able to strengthen our value proposition and if we keep gaining share beyond talent sourcing, the increasing demand for employer branding solutions on our platform is also supporting better monetization in the mid segment. Volume growth is currently moderate. We are a clear leader in this segment and continue to gain share.
We expect to further increase our hiring share through AI LED capabilities this that enhance recruiter productivity and enable workflow automation with AI remaining a key driver. Our focus here is also on improving revenue per hire through focus on job marketing data products and scaling assisted services through AI plus human led assistance. In the value segment volumes are growing rapidly. However, digital penetration remains low and monetization is structurally challenging. Our hiring share is currently limited with job hair expected to play an increasing role over the long term. In this segment, ARPUs are lower, churn is high, employers hire urgently, not periodically and workers don’t maintain resumes and look for jobs locally.
Therefore, success here depends on building a platform that enables real time labor matching while creating simple workflow solutions for the informal economy. Similar models have scaled effectively in markets such as China where platforms build strong SME density and unlock meaningful growth. We view this as a medium term opportunity that can contribute potentially contribute meaningfully to recruitment revenue over time, grow faster than the core business and benefit from the broader formalization of the economy. Beyond the core B2B business, our B2C offering is scaling well, delivering a CAGR of 20% over the last few years while improving profitability from 30% to 59% over the last couple of years.
This Primarily comprises of two consumer offerings, Naukri 360 that offers AI profile, AI powered profile, resume interview prep and job discovery solutions and Naukri Minis, a high quality short term short form content feed that drives strong engagement by providing career insights. Driven by these initiatives, monthly active users have grown at a CAGR of 12% over the last couple of years and and paid users as a percentage of MAU have risen from around 1.2% to 1.6% over the past year with a significant room with significant room for further growth. The revenue growth has been driven by the launch and rapid scale up of Naukri360 that has led to two shifts, the first being transforming from an offline lead calling based sales model to a largely self serve online first model.
The our online revenue mix has changed from 27% to 54 to has moved from 27% to 45% over the last 12 months. The second shifting is shift is the embedding of candidate service delivery within product, leveraging AI and delinking scale from ops bandwidth. With improving engagement, expanding monetization levers and continued product innovation, we believe this business is well positioned positioned to sustain healthy growth going forward. On the international side, our Naukri Gulf business has delivered billing growth of 20% over the last few years alongside a meaningful improvement in profitability progressing from break even to an operating mar to an operating margin of now 33%.
The platform extends the Naukri playbook to the Middle east with localized solutions tailoring to regional hiring needs while building a strong on on ground presence and solid brand recall amongst both job seekers and recruiters. With healthy hiring momentum across these markets and a strengthened operating foundation, we believe Naukri Gulf is well positioned to sustain strong profitable growth going forward. Moving on to the Real Estate business the real estate business spans multiple segments new homes, resale and rental within residential along with commercial with new homes and resale comprising the majority of the market opportunity. Over the past 12 to 18 months we have consistently expanded our traffic share by approximately 0.5 to 1% each month, reflecting steady execution and strengthening platform relevance.
In the residential resale segment, daily fresh supply has grown by 40% over the last 24 months, taking our share supply share to 50% in Q3. Response growth has has nearly doubled over the last couple of years and and grew by over around 60% in Q3 in the new project segment. This is a large this is a large market estimated at about 5000 crores including both digital and non digital advertising spends. Our current share remains relatively modest with a meaningful proportion a portion being captured by horizontal platforms such as Meta and Google. This presents a significant headroom opportunity for us.
We are seeing some green shoots here. Responses which were response growth which in this segment which was flat last year is now but are now growing at 30% year on year on our platform. We are strengthening our penetration and offerings in this segment, including the recent rollout of 99 shots in the NCR market, an Instagram style short video feed featuring project insights, restaurant reviews and curated content to drive deeper user engagement. The rental and commercial segments, while small today, are also seeing faster response growth on our platform. Sustained gains in gains in supply, traffic and response position us well for continued growth.
These operating improvements typically translate into billing growth with a lag as customers increase spending after experiencing a better response and better quality of response over time which in turn will drive operating leverage and cash flow generation. Moving on to the matchmaking business Jeevan Sathi the business has delivered consistent momentum with 30% YoY buildings growth over the last 7, 8 quarters and has progressed from operating losses of rupees 120 crores a few years ago to now reach break even. We have emerged as a leader in the Hindi market in the Hindi speaking markets with a 45% profile share and we continue to expand our presence.
Our focus remains on building a more dominant position in these markets which should help drive higher monetization over time. We are also developing new products leveraging generative AI and data science to enhance user experience and make the partner search process simpler, faster and more relevant in the first nine months. The aisle business which is an acquisition, also recorded rupees 28 crores in billings reflecting 30% y growth alongside a meaningful reduction in operating losses in IELTS. Our near term focus is on product improvements to drive engagement. Making the platform free for women has already contributed to a stronger participation and improved marketplace dynamics in the Malayali market.
We believe RK is a leader in the dating space and has now been consistently growing at 40% year on year, it contributes substantially to overall IELTS revenues. This positions our matchmaking portfolio to sustain higher revenue growth while also contributing to overall cash flow generation in the future. Lastly, in the education business, to mitigate the AI impact and to grow the business, we are pivoting towards counseling and marketing services to diversify the model and build more resilient revenue streams. The study abroad segment is experiencing softness in select markets, particularly the US and Canada. We are actively diversifying our offerings toward destinations such as the uk, UAE and continental Europe while strengthening our presence these markets to align with evolving student preferences in support to support future growth Couple of Minutes on AI There are multiple schools of thought on how how AI may reshape hiring and global trends may not but but global trends may not fully translate to the Indian market given its unique highlighting hiring dynamics.
Global recruitment models are primarily driven by job listings, but these have not historically seen success in the Indian market. Most of our revenue, as you know, comes from our database offering. While AI can enhance workforce productivity and lower cost from a global context, its economic viability in India is still unknown. If horizontal AI platforms were to expand into the hiring space, it could result in higher noise levels including auto generated resumes, spam applications and low signal candidates, potentially increasing the relevance of specialized curated platforms like nokris. How in recruitment a position is supported by we continue to leverage AI to our advantage in recruitment.
Our position is supported by structural strengths such as large volumes of proprietary data, millions of daily interactions and deep AI and ML capabilities. And this is not just the profile data which is easy to get, but all the behavioral data. You know, the millions of interactions that happen on our platform every day which other platforms may not have. These capabilities power our matching and recommendation engines allowing us to deliver outcomes beyond a simple listings model. Therefore, Naukri is not a typical SaaS business. We are seeing encouraging traction AI Rex, our agentic AI led workflow automation platform.
It is already serving 100 plus clients and has closed 20,000 job mandates, significantly reducing candidate sourcing time. At Jeevan Saathi, recommendation matching and pricing are now fully AI driven leading to improved two way matches and stronger platform outcomes. We are also increasingly deploying AI and Evel in 99 acres to enhance matching and recommendations. Our key priorities AI priorities are enhancing search, quality, personalization and productivity for users and customers, launching AI powered features to improve experience and engagement, building AI first products to unlock new revenue streams and embedding AI into internal processes to improve efficiency and execution and lastly across all our businesses, gen AI is enabling faster feature rollouts, scalable content creation and more efficient marketing with several recent campaigns developed in house using AI LED tools.
Overall, our AI initiatives are delivering tangible operating outcomes and positioning us well to support growth across all our verticals, including recruitment, 99 acres, Jeevan, Saathi and Shiksha while reinforcing our competitive strengths. Thank you all for joining the call and now we are happy to take any questions.
Vineet Ranjan — Senior Vice President, Investor Relations
Thank you. Anand. We can now begin with question answer session. Maybe already have some questions in the queue.
operator
Thanks Vinit, we already have two questions. Anybody who wish to ask a question may raise the hand. We’ll take your name and announce your turn in question. Q. Yeah, so the first question is from Sachin from Bank of America. Sachin, go ahead and ask your question.
Sachin — Analyst
Thanks. And then Vineet, I have three questions. First question Hitesh, just want to double click and get a little bit more clarity in terms of the hiring segments. What you mentioned premium, mid level, wanted to understand basis your interactions with all the companies, how are you seeing actually the hiring trends out here? Obviously there are a couple of pointers right? One is how the macro is going an industry specific issue and second is an AI led impact where clearly there’s a bit more uncertainty and most corporates are not as sure in terms of how should they think about hiring.
So what are you guys picking up and how should generally we expect trends in the premium and mid segment going ahead?
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
Our overall sense of the market right now is that the volume growth continues to be robust in the premium and in the value segments. So there’s a so value by value segments we mean people who are paid less than 5 lakhs per annum and by premium we mean people are paid more than 30 lakhs per annum. So there, there’s there’s a reasonable demand for senior professionals. There’s really a demand for professionals with new age skills and there continues to be a lot of demand for professionals in, in roles like warehousing, logistics, manufacturing, delivery boys, counter sales folks folks and so on.
That’s the value segment. The mid segment volume growth has moderated actually over the last few years is what we sense. So in our view, so we used to see 7, 8% volume growth in this segment every year maybe four or five years ago. Since then that has moderated to 4% volume growth. That’s what we are sensing right now. So this segment which is the 5 to 30 lakh segment seems to be under pressure on volume.
Sachin — Analyst
Okay, got it. Second question is how things are picking up in AI risks and also A bit on Nio. Would love to actually understand how the adoption of agentic AI has been for you guys. Any feedback you are hearing out here and in fact globally we found agentic AIs which is being launched is typically deflationary in nature. So wanted to understand is it allowing you to charge more or you know there could be an impact from a deflationary perspective. Also from a pricing point of view.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
It’S still early days and close to 100 of our clients are now experimenting with AirX. Over 20,000 mandates have been sort of used AirX over the last few months. We are also fine tuning our go to market. We are, you know also iterating a bit as we go along. We’re also trying to figure out how we can take it faster to more customers so that they can at least try with, try it, play with it. And that also gives us feedback and helps us improve the offering. So early days still, I mean we are, I mean our clients are learning, we are also learning will it be deflationary or inflationary? I don’t know.
Our short term goal will be to get more and more clients to use it first. So we’ll focus on adoption and usage and we think if we are able to enable more hiring through AirX or and if you’re able to enable faster hiring through ARX over time and help recruiters become more productive, revenue will follow.
Sachin — Analyst
Got it. And are you seeing any of your competitors launch it? Because globally we see in indeed and seek also launch their own agentic AI peers.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
I’m sure others are also experimenting but I mean it’s still early days in this market.
Sachin — Analyst
Got it. And third question is on the point what you mentioned about the unique nature in India from a hiring dynamics perspective. Can you help us explain a bit more in terms of how India and Naukri is different as compared to global peers? Because globally the concerns right now are the growth and margins be under pressure but completely understand India hiring is different. Would love to understand, you know where Nokri is unique and why those global pressures are not there in India.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
Yeah, I, I so India is different. I tell you how India is different. See globally most job boards work on, I mean job listings is is what works most other markets. Right. So companies post jobs on platforms and they get applications and they hire from the applications they get. Now that’s not a very effective way of hiring way of hiring in India because what tends to happen in India at least in the mid market and premium segments is that there are lots of applicants so As a company, let’s say you, you want to hire two people and you post a job.
And if you get 2,000 applications, you know, you get overwhelmed. And which is why what has happened over time in a market like India is that companies have moved to hiring through the Naukri database. Now what happens when you use the database is you search the database and you look for the kind of people you are interested in and then you contact them, right? So you only reach out to the people who you think are relevant. When you post a job, a lot of irrelevant applications come your way. Now, now what this whole talk of disintermediation fundamentally means that you know, some AI agent will start applying on the, on behalf of job seekers.
And you know what, what I was sort of referring to is that this may actually mean in a market like India, this may actually mean even more spam. Because see, overseas job seekers are selective. Like I remember when I went for a conference one to Switzerland many years ago, I was told that the number of one job site in Switzerland gets six applicants per job, right. While in India that number can be a few hundred and in some cases go into a few thousand. Right? So overseas, you know, job seekers are more selective and therefore there is less spam and therefore it is, it’s easier to hire through job postings.
India is the other way around. Job seekers are not selective. You get inundated, overwhelmed with applications and applicants and therefore a lot of companies don’t want to post jobs. They would rather hire through the database or through consultants because consultants do go even one step further. So that’s how the Indian market is different. And if these AI agents lead to more spam, more job seeker spam, I think the value of databases like Nokrim actually go up over time.
Sachin — Analyst
Pretty clear. Yeah. That’s it for me, thanks.
operator
Okay, thanks Sachin. Next question from VI from Capital and ask your question.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you very much for the opportunity. My questions, the first one is on recruitment. So thanks for the color on the kind of growth you’re seeing across hiring buckets. But coming back to your traditional breakup which is tech, gccs and non tech, it seems that your, your monetization from non IT customers, especially in BFSI retail infrastructure has, has been weak since May and there’s been no recovery there. Why, why is, is it that you’re struggling with non IT customers? Are they delaying their decisions to renew or are they taking up very less hiring quotas? What is the challenge here? What do you hear from your sales team? That is the first Question.
I will ask the second one after you answer this.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
Yeah, see if you look, our YTD sort of sales growth in the non hiring segment is close to 7%. Right? So we’ve seen a sharp slowdown compared to last year. Now there have been one or two cases where clients have sort of not renewed for their internal reasons. Maybe if they will come back and renew three months from now, six months from now, who knows. But even if I were to take that into account, it’s low growth, you know, 7, 8% in that ballpark for, for the year. Some sectors are still growing like healthcare, but others have been slow.
I suspect this is cyclical. I suspect this has to do with the economy. And if the economy turns and you know, growth, hiring will come back to these segments. That’s my sense. I could be wrong. I don’t think this is because of AI or anything. Because it’s not as if a lot of non AI IT companies have started adopting AI in a large, in a big way. I think this is perhaps cyclical and has to do with the economy. And as and when the economy comes back, this growth should come back.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, so hitesh. Just a follow up on this, connecting it to the volume growth you are seeing in the under 5 lakh CTC segment. My understanding was that a large number of hiring mandates among the non IT customers would be these kind of mandates. Right?
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
So certain promotion proportion, of course.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. I thought retail and then staffing, all of them would be in this category. Which is why it is a bit surprising that you said the value segment from a CTC standpoint is seeing healthy volume growth.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
But then see what I, what I meant was that the value segment and I was also looking at data on job hair and in that we, I, I’m including blue collar workers, I’m collar workers, I’m including white collar workers who get paid 30, 40,000 rupees a month. I, I, our sense is that job growth in this segment is higher than the job growth growth in the mid market segment, you know, in the pure white collar 5 to 30 lakh category segment. Similarly job growth in the premium segment which is the above 30 lakh rupee jobs.
Is our census today higher than in the mid market segment? Right, that’s what we are sensing. But this includes on the value side this includes blue collar, includes jobs in warehouses, logistics jobs, jobs in delivery companies, taxi driver jobs, manufacturing jobs, counter sales, retail sales, you know, all these kind of jobs as well. Healthcare workers, lower end, at the lower end, all kinds of such jobs.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. That’s great. I’m clear on this. The second one is on the tech, IT and BPM segments. Now, you saw growth accelerate, but the narrative that the IT companies are driving towards is quite different. So how did you manage to accelerate billing growth from this category of customers?
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
Again, see, I would not read too much into quarterly billing growth. Again, YTD growth in this segment is also about 9% or so. See, sometimes in a quarter, you know, if somebody pays in advance, you see higher billing growth. Sometimes, you know, renews get deferred. So you see lower billing growth. I think YTD is, you know, it’s not, we’re not seeing a sharp acceleration. I would still say that, you know, we are in that 8, 9% range for the year, even in the IT and BPM and tech segments.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, that’s quite clear. My second question is on the ad spends. So you did allude to ad spending moderate and that is something you have delivered on this quarter. Now, just to understand better, we’ve seen the standalone ad spend to sales percentage remain very fmcg. Like, in fact, even FMCG companies are spending much less now. Right. From an ad spend to sales perspective, how should we think about the intensity of advertising considering that a significant portion of the advertising for you is discretionary and towards, say, branding rather than specifically to attract traffic?
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
So you see, our ad spends have been sort of flattish, you know, in Naukri in the recruitment space, but our ad spend has actually grown this year in both the matrimony business and in the real estate business. Now, while in only, you know, a lot of this spend is performance advertising, some of it is brand advertising only the brand spend is discretionary. The performance spend is not so discretionary. Okay, you can maybe still, you know, you know, sort of, okay, moderate by 10, 20%, but it’s not as you can stop it totally. And what you’re in in nine and acres, you know, we are investing for growth.
We have been gaining traffic share and our marketing spend is helping. We figured out a way to sort of make the marketing work for us and it’s helping us grow traffic share, grow supply, grow revenue share and we’ll continue to do that in matrimony. Also, the ad spend is not discretionary because, you know, it’s an integral part of our acquisition strategy and it’s grown over time because again, we’ve been gaining share and we now want to accelerate share growth in matrimony as well. So I don’t understand the FNC space. So I don’t know how they think about advertising.
But in all our verticals, a large part of the ad spend, I would say is performance based. So you have to do it. Some of it is brand, so that’s more discretionary. And some of it is we are investing in the future to sort of gain share and to accelerate growth.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, is it possible for you to give a broad direction in terms of the ad spend across divisions? Like how much would Naukri be and what the other businesses. Is it possible to give color on that?
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
Do we do that, Vineet?
Vineet Ranjan — Senior Vice President, Investor Relations
No, we generally do not for comparative reasons.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
I think we don’t want to get these numbers out.
Vineet Ranjan — Senior Vice President, Investor Relations
Okay, that’s great. But just for your reference, these numbers as a percentage of revenue across businesses are very different. So these would be much higher in 99 Jeevan Sati. It will be much, much lower than what you are referring to from FMCG point of view.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, understood. And just to clarify, again, the performance marketing ad spends are largely in 99 acres and Jeevan Saathi, while brand spends will be more in Naukri. Is that how. How it is?
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
No. See, there is some performance marketing everywhere and there is some branding everywhere and then something we call insiders, quasi branding. So it’s like half performance, half branding. But across all our, you know, all. In all our verticals we have all kinds of spends. But like Vineet said, as a percentage of sales or ad spends, the highest in Jeevan sati followed by 9 acres followed by Nakri.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, thanks. My last question is on AI. Now you did describe about the AI journey that you had in your core businesses. Could you help us understand how some of your investee companies are leveraging on AI? How are they using it? I mean, you gave the example of AI Rex for Naukri and say in some of the other businesses as well. But is it possible for you to give us some case studies or some color on the investments that you have, the VC investments and how they are using AI?
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
Are you there?
Unidentified Participant
Sorry, sorry, I’m here. Sorry, sorry. I. Yeah. So how. We see investment using AI depends VARs from computer to companies. Some companies in fact are AI first and some companies about AI. Others, you know, may or may not be using AI. To the extent that Nokri is doing, Naukri I think is very advanced. It’s one of the, I think one of the. What I gather from other companies and what I see is among Indian companies, Naukri is perhaps the. One of the most, if not the most advanced company in adoption usage. Of AI, the kind of team we have put up in Naukri, of more than 130, 150 people doing AI and ML, there aren’t too many other companies with that kind of capability.
Having said that, there are companies that are AI first. And many other startups have the dude with five engineers or 10 engineers. Knocker has got 150, 130 to 150. And it varies from company to company. But. But, but, yes. I mean, but nowadays the business plans we see of fresh startups, almost all of them have an AI element to it.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
You know, if I may just add to what Sanjeev said, I think one of the differences, one of the. Between us and a lot of other startups is that we are, you know, using, deploying and using AI at scale, right? Because we have the kind of data we have, the kind of usage we have, not many startups have. So while enough companies are AI native or AI first, they’re operating at a very small scale. And I think it requires a different skill set to use AI at scale at the kind of scale we are using AI.
Unidentified Participant
All right, that’s great. Thank you. And all the very best.
operator
Thanks, Vic. Next question from Nikhil. From Nikhil, go ahead and ask your question.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. First question, Hitesh. On profitability, staff cost was down meaningfully this quarter. That led to better EBITDA margin. Generally, we don’t see such dip in Q3. Was it due to internal efficiency measure or. And is it sustainable?
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
No, no, no. You know, I think again, I would rec. Not. I would urge you to not read too much into quarterly numbers. Look at the YTD number. YTD margins in okri are more like 56, 57, not Q3 was 59, Q153. So I think, you know, there are. Sometimes numbers could be different because of incentive payouts, set bonuses and so on and so forth. Sometimes targets are met, sometimes they’re not met. So. So, you know, and normally, for example, a lot of our hiring, you know, when we hire from campus, a lot of these kids join in around Q3 end or Q4 end.
So. And then over time, this attrition. So I would not reach too much into quarterly numbers. Go by the YTD number.
Unidentified Participant
Got it. Second one on AI Rex. I mean, how we are monetizing it, how we are pricing it in general.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
We are still experimenting. Like I said, our focus, you know, we were trying to monetize, but I think it’s too early. We should. My view is that we should take it more aggressively to market. Let companies play with it, let them use it, benefit from it, revenue will follow.
Unidentified Participant
Got it.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
Figured out how to monetize it.
Unidentified Participant
Got it. Within the subsegments of recruitment, one segment that remain under pressure is third party recruiter. Right. And theoretically it also makes sense given how repetitive tasks are, how inefficient. I mean lower ROI you generate compared to platforms like Naukri. Hypothetically, can that segment which is 25% of revenue, remain under pressure? Given a company will look for more efficiency, especially from hiring and the tools such as AI Rex where you, I mean you’re done 2000 mandates, can that scale and keep impacting this segment where on alternate scenario you might benefit. Or. Get better monetization while that segment can remain under pressure. Hy pothetically,
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
We normally see if I, you know, the last 25 years our revenue from consultants has been in the 25 to 27, 28 mark. You know, for some reason this doesn’t change much. Right. In good markets, of course in, you know, if the high market is, is hot, then of course companies tend to use consulting firms a lot more. Their fee also goes up. In a lukewarm market, companies would, you know, they take their own sweet time to hire. They’re not in a hurry. They first use platforms like Nokri, etc and only if they’re not able to get success do they go to consultants.
And of course they also drive down consultant fees. Right. So one, it’s of course that the other thing, it also depends on who is able to adopt these new technologies faster. So consultants are also smart, you know, they, you know, and our arx, you know, we will, I’m sure we’ll offer it to consultants also. It’s not as if we’ll offer it to only companies, right? So if they are faster of the block, if they are, because they are promoter on firms, if they are, you know, they tend sometimes, often many of them tend to be nimble and agile and they are sort of, they move quickly.
So if they adopt these tools faster, who the hell knows? I mean they’re, you know, they may become more efficient over time as well. Now companies will of course also adopt these tools and try and become more efficient. So, but you know, what I’ve seen over time is for some reason consultants are considered 25% of our revenue.
Unidentified Participant
Sure. Just last one, on pricing, I think for two years we haven’t increased at a blended level pricing meaningfully. Can that pricing increase going ahead with initiatives such as AI Rex, with initiatives where we Are pushing Nauri top tier. At a blended level can pricing grow let’s say at par with mid to high single digit type which we were doing earlier?
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
It can and you know, but it’s just, it’s easier to do it if you offer more value adds to companies. Right. And it’s easier to do it in a hotter market. In a hot recruitment market it’s harder to push pricing. You know, when companies are not hiring a lot of people. Right. Because they take their time, you know, they can wait, they negotiate. We have quarterly targets to meet sales people are incentivized on quarterly quotas and so on. So they end up giving discount sometimes. So what we’ve seen in the past is that in hot markets we are able to take prices of faster.
But yes, over a period of time. See if you take us a longer period then you know price increases tend to be in the range of the price increase tends to be in the range of 5, 6% per annum.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, completely agree. But more in short to medium term because I don’t think we are seeing hot market anytime soon. At least that is what it looks like. That’s why Ken, at a blended level using even last time I asked the same question that can the premium hiring be monetized in a different way where you can maybe charge it different way. So at a blended level we can increase pricing despite of market. It is where it is.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if this, if more premium hiring happen starts to happen through our platform then even for the same volume we’ll be able to get higher value. Right.
Unidentified Participant
Got.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
But that has to materialize.
Unidentified Participant
Got it. Got it. That’s it for my side. Thank you so much. Good luck for coming there.
operator
Thanks Nikhil. Next question is from Vijit Chen from City. Go ahead and ask a question.
Vijit Jain — Analyst
Yeah. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. My first question, you know, so is Naukri360 Pro targeted, you know more towards the mid segment or the premium segment of the market and you know any, you know, any color you can give on you know, adoption there? I mean in general the job market I think as to what you mentioned in the mid segment is challenging. LinkedIn Premium seems to be similar product is is that product seeing more adoption and you know, any other color you can give on that? That’s my first question.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
Sorry, I don’t have segmental numbers for, for 360 but in generally, at least in the past I don’t have the latest numbers. You know we, you know there used to be higher adoption amongst more experienced professionals. Okay, I don’t have the latest numbers on me.
Vijit Jain — Analyst
Fair enough. The second question was kind of related. So, you know, with this. So assuming that, you know, this trend where, you know, you have more growth momentum in the premium segment and say in the value segment and, you know, there’s this whole debate on whether it, whether, you know, AI pushes people up the pyramid curve, so to say. So in general, do you need to rethink product, you know, beyond say the agentic or just to kind of cater to the mid and premium segment a little bit better from a recruiter point of view? I mean, LinkedIn is obviously a very different form factor of what they provide to recruiters than what you do.
And if the job market is shifting that way, do you shift more towards LinkedIn model or is there a third approach?
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
So, good question. See, we’ve just launched Naukri top tier. So within Naukri, we’ve launched a Knockri top tier that’s meant for premium job seekers and it’s meant for recruiters who are looking to hire premium job speakers. And we are trying to provide a differentiated experience to both job seekers and recruiters. In this segment on Naukri, we’re doing a little differently from LinkedIn early days, you know, but what I can tell you is that CV views, which is one of the metrics we track right. On our platform, CV view growth in Naukri top tier is higher than CVV growth for the platform as a whole.
Right. And of course, we are also working hard on improving our, you know, vertical offerings like imjobs and, and High Risk. We built High Risk over the last couple of years. It targets premium tech talent and we’ve got IM Jaws, which targets premium mba. So we are also building and trying to improve these vertical offerings. Of course, there are some people who are on both Iron Jobs and Naukri, but there are enough for only on IM jobs and not a knockery there. Enough for only on High Risk and not a Naukri. And we are taking them to these offerings to recruiters.
In the premium segment, we have headroom to grow our share. Right. Because we’re not as dominant as we are in the middle segment. So. So there’s an opportunity here. We’re working hard on it. Let’s see where we end up in the next 12 to 18 months. Yeah. So do you have a second question? Sorry.
Vijit Jain — Analyst
Yeah. So, I mean, I think I was just trying to get a sense of, you know, so you mentioned I am jobs high risk. I mean, is, is there a, you know, do they kind of get clubbed together into a single offering. Either perhaps you already have a single offering to recruiters and these are different platforms for candidates. I’m just trying to get a sense of whether, you know, the, the whole product here needs some kind of a rethink or retweak to kind of address go to market better.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
Yeah, so, so you know, see this stuff you’re experimenting with, so they are, they are separate platforms and there are some people who use only high risk and only IM jobs that don’t use Naukri and vice versa. But we are also trying to sort of, you know, develop this whole concept of a Naukri talent crowd where if you, you know, if you’re a recruiter on Naukri, you also get to see the other platforms and use them. But early days there. So we are experimenting with it, but early days.
Vijit Jain — Analyst
Got it. And one related question. So you know, you said premium hiring is doing well. I know GCCS is doing well. There’d be safe to assume that it’s kind of an overlap there, right? To a certain extent.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
Yeah, there’ll be some overlap for sure.
Vijit Jain — Analyst
Yeah. And the last bit on this front, so you know in the presentation you’ve said that IT direct, IT exposure for you now is 25% and including consultants is now 30, 35%. Now I think if I’m right, the including consultants part has come off because it used to be 50% of consultant business was it and now it looks like it’s more or less a third. So is there a shift happening there?
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
I think this is, my sense is this is, you know, if the case right now, but let’s say if IT hiring would have come back to the bank then you know, you know, consultants will again go back to IT companies and start hiring for them. So consultants are nimble, the agile, they sort of move where the hiring moves to. So there’s a lot of IT hiring. They have, they put more people onto IT hiring. If this on the other hand, they don’t see action on the IT front, they move into other segments. So. Yeah, so
Vineet Ranjan — Senior Vice President, Investor Relations
anything just to add to it. So we have also moved from three segments to four segments. We are now calling out GCC separately. Segment and GCC hiring is not only it, there’s a large part of GCC who hire non ID talent as well. So therefore just because the reporting structure as well, the shift from that 50 to 1535, that’s a, that’s another reason for that.
Vijit Jain — Analyst
Okay, got it, got it. Understood. And one last question. For me. Hitesh. So in terms of M and A, you know, what would be areas you would prefer to go into? I mean are we talking about other classified businesses? I think there are, there may be a few up for grabs even in categories where you’re not present or could it be in, you know, just technology or enterprise SaaS or. I mean are there any preferred areas where you, where you think you would like to go?
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
See, if you look at our track record, you know, the successful M&As that we pulled off have been very small ones. Right. So we acquired a company called MakeSense Technology. It was a technology company, semantic search, you know, many years ago. It worked out really well for us. It was perhaps AI. It was not called AI in those days, but it was early AI then, you know, we acquired Ambition Box to a small company when we acquired it a few years ago has turned out it’s now bigger than classroom in India. So that’s worked out well for us.
And then a few years back we acquired I am Jobs in highest IAM jobs. The highest was tiny at that time and that’s also worked out well for us. Then a couple of years ago, a few years ago we acquired ZM and do select. These are again small acquisitions, more on SaaS and assessment platforms still WIP, you know, for us. So I think we’ll continue to be open to the idea of you know, equi hires, acquiring for technology, acquiring products, acquiring small businesses which we think we can scale, you know, given our distribution, given our sales reach, given our established customer base.
So these are acquisitions we’ll be open to or if something takes us into a slightly different segment like I am jobs and high risk. You know, we were weaker on the premium side so we sort of bought these companies. We are doing job internally. Right. That’s a blue collar play. So let’s see how that plays out. You know we. But tomorrow there’s something interesting on the gig side or you know, if there are other areas that you think are likely to grow faster, then we’ll be more than open to acquisitions in those. In those segments that’s in jobs and similarly in real estate and in matrimony.
You acquired aisle, you know, so matrimony in Jeevan Saudi is more about matrimonials while I’ll is more dating for matrimony. So it’s a little more, it’s a little different from. And while RK is a regional dating platform. So in the, in the, in the businesses, in the verticals we operate, we will continue to do these small acquisitions in adjacent areas, you know, to, you know, because if, especially if they give us, especially there, there are, you know, they help us build a technology mode or they help us take a new product. They give us a new product which we think we can scale 10x by taking it to market through our sales system, or if they help us acquire a new capability which will be useful over time.
So these are the kind of. We are constantly on the lookout for. The big M and A is different. It’s opportunistic. You know, we haven’t done any big M and A till now. In some sectors, consolidation makes sense, but there aren’t too many companies. We are unlikely to do a major diversification. It’s not ruled out ever, but unlikely in the near future.
Vijit Jain — Analyst
Got it, Got it. Great. Thank you, Hitesh, those are my questions. Thank you, everyone.
operator
Thanks, Rajit. Next question from Ankur from JP Morgan. Ankur, go ahead and ask your question. There. So he’s not there. So. Next question from Sopnil from GM Financial. Go ahead and ask your question.
Swapnil — Analyst
Hi, thanks for the opportunity. My first question is to Hitesh and Hitesh. If I look at your historical revenue breakup, you used to mention revenue by product type. And, and that revenue is to contribute roughly around two thirds of our B2B revenue in the Nokri business. Now the question out here is like assuming, and I’m presuming this, this is basically your. The revenue was so high because people used to download the CVS a lot more given they used to do it in volumes. Assuming tomorrow because of AI, the access required by the companies, uh, reduces meaningfully.
Right. Will, is there a possibility that the companies will also want to renegotiate on the pricing of the subscriptions that they pay for? Just to give an example, if I were paying x amount for 100 resumes and tomorrow I need just 80 resumes. Will, will the companies come back to you and say that, you know, on a per resume basis I don’t need to pay so the same way that, that I used to pay in the past. So I’m just coming from a risk perspective. Can you just help us?
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
Per resume pricing may not change. Okay. But yeah, if companies, you know, if consumption, if, if you know, X number of resumes were being accessed till, let’s say last year and that number starts to fall, you know, then of course volume will go down. Right. But not pricing necessarily.
Swapnil — Analyst
And any, any, any discussion that you had with your clients on this. Off late because.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, this happens all Every time, every year. So there are some clients who buy more, some clients may, if they anticipate lower hiring, they downgrade. So. So this happens all the time? Yeah, this has been happening for several years now. In a good market most clients tend to consume more. You know, conversion rates also fall. So when you know, you may see 100 resumes and make two offers and you will not be able to hire anybody because the market is so hot in a, in a lukewarm market you may make offers and people join. Conversion rates are also better. So this is something which happens all the time here. So and of course a lot depends on how the company is doing as well.
There are companies who shut down every year. There are companies which downsize sometimes so they know that they will need to hire fewer people. Their companies are growing rapidly, let’s say new GCC sets up shop, they know they’re going to expand rapidly so they buy more. So you know, this is something we encounter every year on the whole our volumes have been holding and like I mentioned earlier, we are seeing modest growth in the, in the middle segment and higher growth in premium and, and the lower segments. Company by company thinks very, of course every year.
Swapnil — Analyst
Got it. And, and any thoughts on the hiring budgets that these companies would have right now going. I’m talking about the near to medium term and I’m not talking about long term story here but any color on that side. Like how what are you getting feedback you’re getting from the clients.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
See, my sense is that, see if you, the, the non IT market I think has been slow because the economy has been slow at least in the sectors where we get a lot of revenue from. And if that, if things will turn there, we should see an uptick going forward. I t, you know, I don’t know, the jury is still out there. There is so much noise, there’s so much confusion. You know, a lot will depend on IT companies and how they’re thinking about, you know, and the kind of demand that they’re seeing on their, at their end.
Right. Gccs see the big ones may come under pressure for some time if they, if they start these companies like the big ones start laying off in the US for a time, they may not want to hire in India but the small ones which have just set up shop in the last two, three, four years where their India headcount is maybe still less than 20% or 15% of their global headcount will want to continue to scale to get to that number. That’s the way I see it got it.
Swapnil — Analyst
And just one question on your unique clients build, that number seems to be growing quarter on quarter. So exactly where this new clients are coming from, which sectors? And because it seems that these guys are help you, helping you offset some of the impact from the traditional sectors.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
So we’ve expanded our sales operation to more cities. We are, we have launched some freemium offerings on Nakri. We are. So, so. But you know, most of these new clients, they start small and, and there’s also a lot of churn in this segment. Arpus are low when they start now over time some of them sort of, you know, up their game and they start adding more people, they start using us more. But yes, we put in a little more effort over the last 12 months to get more new customers into the system. So and one way we’ve done it is by making, by having a freemium offering on Okri.
So a lot of that encourages a lot of small SMEs to try and. Ok. And then we try and upsell to some of them.
Swapnil — Analyst
Okay. And just the last one on the margin side. So in the past I think you said that if your billings stays around low teens, margin expansion in the Nokri business will be a difficult task. Any, any, any revised thoughts on that side? Like would you, would you take any efficiency efforts to, you know, at least optimize on the margin side if billing stays where it is today. Thanks.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
No, I think, see we, there are some investments which we need to make. Like we are losing, you know, approximately 50 crores a year in our job hair business, which is our blue collar business. That’s a business we are building for the future. We will continue to invest in this business for the next few years. Right. So this is not something we want to cut down on, you know. Similarly, we will continue to make AI investments. There are capabilities we need to build, there is stuff we need to do. You know, there could be a temporary slowdown in hiring, you know, but you know, it’s important that we are ready, you know, when hiring comes back and we are able to grab the opportunities which AI is sort of bringing our way.
So we will continue to make these investments. Marketing investment, we can play with a little bit here and there. They don’t really matter in the short term. It’s not. Our headcount will not go up too much. Right. So if we can grow in the teens, we’ll be able to maintain and improve our margins. If we grow in single digits then, you know, we might lose some margin. Let’s see.
Swapnil — Analyst
Got it. Thanks A lot for answering those questions and all the best.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
Anand, you’re on mute.
operator
Sorry. Thanks. Thanks. Vivek is back with a follow up question from Ambit. Vivek, go ahead and ask a question.
Vijit Jain — Analyst
Yes, thanks Anand for the follow up opportunity. Two questions. So one is Zam and do select. They don’t seem to be growing quite fast. What’s the challenge there? In fact, your billing there is growing at a slower pace than the core business which has n number of pressures. What’s going on?
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
I’ll tell you what’s happening. See, we have been experimenting over the last few quarters with different go to market and bundling strategies for our newer offerings. And so, and you know, I think it’ll take a while, maybe a quarter or two for the dust to settle down on that front till we get it right. And I think that’s what is perhaps creating this, whatever this issue that you’re seeing, you, you’ve rightly identified it. You know, we’re trying to figure out whether clients, you know, so sometimes to get higher billing we push these offerings onto customers.
We want to see whether customers really want them and in some cases when we do that we don’t see a lot of adoption. So we are trying to dial back a little bit. So we are sort of playing around with all this to see what is the best way to take some of these new offerings to market and that is resulting in this movement. Things will settle down maybe in a couple of quarters.
Vijit Jain — Analyst
Okay, excellent. The second one is on job hair. Now you said that you’re spending some 50, 60 crore there on an annual basis. So how, how has been the offtake? How many cities have you gone to? Have you been able to do any detailed perhaps pilots or monetization with some of your associate companies also? I mean Zomato for example, or Eternal for example has a lot of feet on street as far as the rider fleet is concerned where you might be able to experiment with jobhead. So if you can detail some progress sector wise and also market wise to help us understand the scalability of job hair say from a three, five year perspective, that’d be great.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
Yeah. So you know, excellent. So question. So I’ll tell you, see how we have approached job. We worked very hard on the product. We wanted to get the product market fit right. And I think we are past that point. We then we wanted to get the playbook right, you know, the playbook of taking it to market and the scaling playbook. So what we did over the last 18 months was to double down in one city which is, so we chose Delhi NCR because that’s where we are based and said let’s try and see if we can make job in Delhi ncr.
So, so now the good news is that we believe that Job here is now the biggest sort of player in this segment, right in ncr. So we are bigger than any other player and we have started monetizing also in Delhi ncr. Now on monetization. Monetization normally follows with the lag of a year. So we are not as, not the largest still, but we are, we are sort of growing month on month. So our marketing efforts, our sales efforts, a lot of our, all our efforts are focused on NCR for the last 12, 18 months. Not that we don’t have presence elsewhere.
We still have, we have presence in many cities but we were more sort of focused on like becoming like a leader in, in ncr. Now that we are more confident we will over the next 12 months take this playbook to other cities. So we’ll, and, and we may, we may not go to 60 cities or 80 cities in, in in the next 12 months, but we will perhaps take this model and to Bombay and Bangalore and a few other cities and see if we can become a leader in those markets. And then over time we’ll take it to other, other cities.
That’s the way we are approaching it now. This is a market where there’s a lot of volume but arpus are low. It’s not easy to make money, but it’s important for the long run. Strategically. It’s important because it keeps other players out in the short term as well. And because once people get in then they may move into other segments. Long term it should be possible to make money in this space. But like is the case with any Internet business, you need to be number one or a number two player to make any money. Right? So that, that logical hold for, for this segment as well. So now what will success look like if in 5 years or 5, 6 years this becomes 10, 15% of Naukri India? Then I think that is what success will look like in Job here.
Vijit Jain — Analyst
Okay, that’s, that’s very helpful. My last question is to Sanjeev. So Sanjeev, how is the operating environment like for startup funding? What are the kind of ideas you’re getting? And also some of the investees of Info Edge Venture Venture Fund one you had updated us about a couple of years back that these companies are securing funding from external investors as well in later stages. Is that improving at the margins or getting worse. Please help us understand the overall funding landscape, not just at seed stage, but maybe series BC as well. Thank you.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
So no, without sort of taking specific names in the portfolio, because we’d rather announce that in a planned manner. Look, the winners are being sorted out and the winners are moving ahead and getting further funding and you know, both in, you know, in fund one, fund two, and one or two even in fund three. Pretty soon actually. Now a few were hit by the tariffs, by the US Tariffs because they did cross border business, but they adjusted, adapted, went to other markets, sometimes raised prices and sort of founded. The demand was still sticky. So actually they’ve come out of it fairly well.
And now hopefully with tariffs going down, they should be back in business. Okay, so I would say about Maybe out of 27, maybe 10 or 15 have got serious follow on rounds and some of them are doing very well. But what we actually need is four or five big winners out of the first fund to really return the fund and, you know, make a good multiple on it. And we have a total of 28 or 29 companies in Fund 1.
Vijit Jain — Analyst
Okay, that’s, that’s very helpful. Thank you so much.
operator
Thanks, Vivek and Vinit. This was the last question we had for the evening.
Vineet Ranjan — Senior Vice President, Investor Relations
Yeah. Thank you everyone for joining. On behalf of Info Edge, we now conclude this conference call.
Hitesh Oberoi — Managing Director & CEO
Everyone have a great evening. Thank you.
operator
Bye. Thank you so much, everyone.