Meesho, an Indian online shopping and reselling platform backed by Facebook and SoftBank, has raised $570 million in a funding round led by US-based Fidelity Management & Research Company and B Capital Group.
The latest funding round values the company at $4.9 billion. Existing investors Prosus Ventures, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Facebook also participated in this round, Meesho said in a statement.
Footpath Ventures and India’s Trifecta Capital are the two other new investors, the company said. Trifecta Capital has also made an equity investment in the company.
The Bangalore headquartered eCommerce platform, founded in 2015 by Mr. Vidit Aatrey and Mr. Sanjeev Barnwal, offers social media users products to sell, ranging from clothes to cosmetics, and take a small commission of the actual sales. The company also provides logistics and payment tools to sellers.
Meesho raised $300 million from SoftBank Vision Fund in April valuing it at $2.1 billion, making it the company’s largest fundraising round. In the 5 months since the fundraiser, monthly orders and transactional customers have nearly tripled, the company said.
The company had recorded nearly 45 million monthly orders in August up from 20 million in March. It had 15 million active users by August. By December 2022, the eCommerce company expects to have about sevenfold more monthly transacting users, bringing the total to 100 million.
Meesho started out as a reselling marketplace for women entrepreneurs and has paved the way for women to earn as well as buy their desired product with relatively low price and good quality putting it in direct competition with Walmart-owned Flipkart, Amazon India and Myntra.
In 2021, Indian startups have been on a tear, with several companies breaking into the unicorn or $1 billion club, and other high-profile names like food delivery app Zomato and digital payments giant Paytm preparing to IPO or seeking to list on domestic stock exchanges.
