Thu. Mar 28th, 2024

Bengaluru-based social e-commerce startup Meesho has raised around ₹365 crore in a series C funding round. The round was led by three new investors, Chinese venture capital firm Shunwei Capital, Yuri Milner‘s DST Global, and SoftBank executive Kabir Misra’s RPS Ventures.

Other existing investors that participated in the round include Sequoia Capital India, SAIF Partners, Y Combinator, and Venture Highway.

Earlier it was reported that Meesho was in talks to raise ₹370 crore and recently there were reports of Kabir Misra’s RPS Ventures investing in Meesho and Acko, marking his first investment in India.

The funds raised will be used to boost products by adding supply-depth to existing categories while adding new categories, scale product and technology teams. It will further use the fresh capital to scale both international and domestic supply-base.

Meesho was founded by two IIT Delhi graduates Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal in 2015. The startup provides a platform to connect sellers directly to re-sellers including college students and homemakers, enabling them to sell to their networks, using social networking platforms like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

Talking about the investment, Tuck Lye Koh, Founding Partner and CEO of Shunwei Capital, said, “Social e-commerce is the next big thing in the e-commerce space of India. We strongly believe that Meesho’s social reselling model is highly suitable for the great number of new-to-Internet buyers. It’s our pleasure to work with the excellent team of Meesho on this exciting opportunity.”

Meesho has so far enabled over 20,00,000 social sellers across more than 500 towns. Its app is available in seven Indian languages, apart from English, targetting the non-English speaking audience in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, who account for around 30-40% of its daily users.

According to the startup, it has witnessed a 10x growth in the last six months and has emerged as one of the most funded social e-commerce startups.

Earlier in June this year, Meesho raised $11.5 million in series B funding round led by Sequoia Capital India. So far, the startup has raised more than $65 million, across all funding rounds, according to Crunchbase.

Other startups competing with Meesho, in the social e-commerce space include Shop101, GlowRoad, Zepo, Shopmatic, and Wooplr.

With the e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart unable to cater to the needs of small sellers, there is a growing market for social e-commerce startups providing an opportunity and platform for these small and budding entrepreneurs.

By Varun

Startups | Books | Ideas

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