 "Meesho")
Indian e-commerce platform Meesho has raised $275 million from investors, the company revealed in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States, an Economic Times report said. The SoftBank-backed e-commerce firm has seen a growing interest from investors for having demonstrated sustainable growth.
SoftBank, Prosus, Elevation Capital, Peak XV Partners are among the existing investors of Meesho. The development marked the first tranche of a larger funding round of $600 million, for which talks are being held by the firm.
“The details are still being worked out for the broader round on valuation. It would be up to $3.9 billion but will be finalised once the round closes,” the report further said.
Meesho raised $1.36 billion since inception
Meesho plans to utilise its primary capital of approximately $300 million to cover taxes resulting from relocating the company’s base back to India from Delaware. The firm is in preparation for an IPO in India and has raised a total of $1.36 billion since its inception in 2015. It turned profitable in July 2023.
The popular e-commerce, which aims to compete with rivals such as Flipkart and Amazon, recorded 14.5 crore app downloads in 2023 in India, data.ai report says. The firm also crossed the milestone of 500 million downloads in H1FY 2023-24.
“Our growth in downloads is now largely coming from organic word-of-mouth-led momentum benefitting from the wide selection and low prices on the platform,” the company boasts.
Meesho is ‘fastest growing e-commerce platform’
Notably, a report by AllianceBernstein in January had placed Meesho as the fastest growing e-commerce platform in terms of user base in India.
“As of FY23, Flipkart was the market leader, with a 48 per cent share in India eCommerce. Flipkart continues to grow faster than the industry... Mobile and apparel to be the largest categories for Flipkart with around 50 per cent and 30 per cent mix. Flipkart is estimated to hold 48 per cent and 60 per cent market share in the online smartphone and online fashion market respectively,” the report said.
