The Indian Unicorn Club – 2021 Entrants – Meesho – One Of The Most Trustworthy Reseller Platform

Meesho, the six-year-old social commerce platform based out of Bengaluru has recently joined the Unicorn Club to make a boom in 2021. Currently valued at $2.1 Billion, the company reached this milestone after its latest round of investments led by Japanese giant SoftBank Group Corp. 

Tweets by Meeshoapp

Meesho – About The Company

Meesho Inc is a B2C Business platform founded in December 2015 by IIT Delhi Alumni Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal. The company handles services like payment and retail distribution, allowing small retailers and resellers to market and sell their products via social media. Their services have allowed small businesses to reach a wider audience through social media and concentrate more on marketing their products. 

The firm has over 45 million customers and claims to have successfully delivered orders for over 100,000 registered suppliers. This spans across 26,000 different PIN Codes in 4800 cities, raking in an equivalent of $68 Million. The firm to increase this number and diversify its merchandise through the latest round of investments.

Meesho- During Covid-19

The pandemic has had largely positive effects on E-Commerce companies. People are shopping more online, and this has made shops want to increase their online presence as well. The company aims to host 100 million small businesses on their platform, and the recent investments will allow them to progress further on this mission.

The Growth Curve

The company has had multiple successful rounds of investments in the past, gathering a total of over $415 million overall. Its Series D round in 2019 amassed a sum of $125 Million from firms like Prosus & Naspers, SAIF Partners and Sequoia Capital. However, the latest round had surpassed this by leaps and bounds, with a total of $300 Million being raked in as funding. 

The latest round of investors was led by the Japanese Investment Conglomerate SoftBank. This is their first such move in the Indian social commerce market and is a part of their second Vision fund targeting tech companies. Other major players include Facebook, Prosus Ventures, Shunwei Capital and Venture Highway, among others.

The latest investments have skyrocketed its value to almost three times that of the previous Series D funding, reaching $2.1 Billion. The company has declared their will to use this support to expand its vision to create a fertile ecosystem for small business to flourish.

Conclusion

The pandemic has revealed the need for these companies to find new avenues, and Meesho aims to reap the rewards of this disruption. They want to use the investment in three avenues, like “building and strengthening our senior leadership; invest a lot in creating awareness of the business even in smaller towns; and fund new initiatives like our new grocery vertical ‘Farmiso’,” quoted Founder and CEO Vidit Aatrey.

The firm has decided to focus on growing even further, expanding its presence in the market over the next few years and eventually consider an IPO. This growth has been partially boosted by the new normal, and will seemingly continue over the years as more SMBs decide to go online.