The firm said on Thursday it has raised $570 million in its Series F financing round, following a $300 million Series E in April when it was valued at $2.1 billion
Indian social commerce company Meesho has more than doubled its valuation in less than six months, to $4.9 billion, as a growing number of high-profile investors back the startup that is reporting strong growth despite the pandemic.
The Bangalore-headquartered firm said on Thursday it has raised $570 million in its Series F financing round, following a $300 million Series E in April when it was valued at $2.1 billion. Fidelity and B Capital Group co-led the new financing round, bringing the startup’s all-time raise to over $1 billion.
Prosus Ventures, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Facebook, and Good Capital also participated in the new round.
Meesho, which counts Sequoia Capital India, Y Combinator, and Elevation Capital among its earliest investors, operates a three-sided marketplace that connects suppliers (manufacturers and distributors) and resellers with customers on social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram. The resellers buy listed products from the suppliers and make commission on each transaction when they sell to customers.
Nearly 80% of resellers on the platform are women, said Vidit Aatrey, who co-founded Meesho with Sanjeev Barnwal in 2015. From the beginning, the startup has aimed to help women start their business without need for any capital.
When we started in 2015, what was mostly available online was branded products that were being sold to tier 1 customers, he said, adding that mostly smartphones, other electronics items and branded fashion products were popular then. Everything else was primarily offline.
India is primarily an unorganized market; 80 to 85% of the entire retail GDP is unstructured and long-tail and run by small businesses. But what had gone online at the time was the exact opposite of it, he said.
He said: Our mission has been to democratize internet commerce for everyone, including consumers, our Meesho entrepreneurs and small businesses. And I think that’s our space: we will continue to focus on small businesses and on the demand side, we will continue to focus on the next billion customers.