Social trade startup Meesho has raised $570 million driven by Fidelity Management and Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital Group. The company was valued at $4.9 billion after the round, beyond twofold of what it was valued under six months ago.
The company also added new investors to its cap table including Footpath Ventures, Trifecta Capital, and Good Capital. Existing investors Prosus Ventures, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Facebook also participated in this round.
The Bengaluru-based company is eyeing to reach 100 million monthly transacting users by December 2022. It plans to utilize the new assets to develop its innovation and item talent by 2.5X and increase its list to more than 50 million items.
The company said it was also looking to expand its food and FMCG offerings with Farmiso, its local gathering buying business to in excess of 200 urban communities.
“By making online shopping for food affordable for first-time users across India’s level 2+ markets, the company is enabling them to shop from a wide selection of food at ticket sizes as low as $1-2,” Meesho said in a statement.
The company had raised $300 million in a financing round drove by SoftBank Vision Fund in April at a valuation of $2.1 billion. Since then, the company claimed it has recorded a 2.5X development in request volume and added a range of new item categories like games and wellness, pet supplies, and automotive accessories.
Meesho is the true leader in the social trade marketplace for unbranded items. As of April, the company claimed to have enabled more than 13 million individual entrepreneurs and in excess of 45 million customers in the country.
While the company is yet to document its annual reports for FY21, it had recorded a 3.8X flood in its operating revenue to around Rs 307 crore in FY20 as compared to Rs 80 crore in FY19. Its annual losses had also dramatically multiplied to Rs 315.4 crore in the year ending March 2020 from Rs 100.42 crore in the preceding fiscal.
The social business space is largely dominated by Meesho along with a large group of new platforms. Its friend Shop101 was acquired by InMobi. GlowRoad, CityMall, DealShare, BulBul, EkAnek and YouTube-claimed Sims im are other immediate and indirect competitors to Meesho.
