Social commerce platform Meesho raises Series B funding

Bangalore- and California-based Meesho, an online marketplace for resellers, has raised $11.5 million (Rs 77 crore) in a Series B round of funding led by Sequoia Capital India, a company statement said.

Existing investors SAIF Partners, Y Combinator and Venture Highway also participated in the round, the statement added.

Meesho said it will use the fresh funds to hire talent, develop its product, and expand categories on its platform.

“We have grown 20 times since our Series A fundraise last year. With the new investment, we plan to double down on our mission to create 20 million entrepreneurs over the next two years by expanding our suite of tools,” said Vidit Aatrey, co-founder and chief executive of Meesho, in the statement.

Meesho has raised a total of $15 million in external funding so far.

In October last year, VCCircle had reported that the startup raised $3.44 million (Rs 22.4 crore then) from a group of angel investors.

However, technology news website TechCrunch later reported that it was a Series A funding round led by venture capital firm SAIF Partners. Existing investors Venture Highway and Y Combinator also participated in the round, the report said.

Meesho, run by Fashnear Technologies Pvt. Ltd, is based out of Bangalore. It also has an entity incorporated in California, US, called Meesho Inc.

The startup was among three Indian startups chosen by Y Combinator for its summer 2016 batch. That was the first time the Silicon Valley-based seed accelerator had selected Indian startups.

The company had raised a couple of angel rounds in 2016: in August that year, it raised an undisclosed amount from a bunch of investors including Kashyap Deorah, co-founder of HyperTrack; Mauritius-based VH Capital; Maninder Gulati, chief strategy officer at OYO Rooms; and Jaspreet Bindra, senior vice president at Mahindra & Mahindra.

In May 2016, it raised an undisclosed sum from Sunstone Business School co-founder and director Rajul Garg, who is also an active angel investor.

Founded in 2015 by Indian Institute of Technology - Delhi alumni Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal, Meesho allows sellers to set up an online shop through its platform and allows users to share content on social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Pinterest, among others.

Prior to setting up Meesho, Aatrey worked with ad-tech company InMobi and FMCG conglomerate ITC, while Barnwal was with consumer electronics companies Sony and Samsung.

Other e-commerce enablers that recently raised funds include Delhi-based KartRocket, which in January this year raised Rs 26.64 crore ($4.1 million) led by Bertelsmann India Investments.

In December 2017, Bangalore-based EasyEcom raised $150,000 (about Rs 1 crore) in angel funding from top tech industry executives and early-stage investment funds.