KOLKATA: Social commerce platform Meesho has raised $300 million in a new round of funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The latest investment values Meesho at $2.1 billion.
The start-up will use the new fund raise to strengthen its talent pool across verticals — tech, product, and business, among others. It saw participation from existing investors — Prosus Ventures, Facebook, Shunwei Capital, Venture Highway and Knollwood Investment.
SoftBank Investment Advisers managing partners Munish Varma said, “Globally, SoftBank has always been excited to back founders that provide unique solutions for the local market. By using the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning, Meesho has created a platform for many small business owners to sell to the next cohort of internet users. We look forward to being a part of this journey.”
Meesho aims to simplify e-commerce for all small businesses in India. It will help the company to build a platform which is pro-small businesses with policies and tools to help even the smallest of sellers to list and do business on Meesho. This will empower small business owners to reach customers through all online channels.
In the past year, the platform has seen tremendous growth across small businesses and entrepreneurs seeking to move their businesses online, Meesho founder and CEO Vidit Aatrey said.
“With the new round of funding, we are extremely thrilled to have SoftBank onboard. We are focused on expanding our vision — from helping aspiring women entrepreneurs to creating Meesho as a single ecosystem that will enable all small businesses in India to succeed online,” he added.
Over the last six years, Meesho has successfully enabled over 13 million individual entrepreneurs to start their own online businesses with zero investment, bringing the benefits of e-commerce to more than 45 million customers in the country. Till date the company has delivered orders from 100K+ registered suppliers to over 26,000 pin codes in more than 4,800 cities, generating over 500 crore in income for individual entrepreneurs and serving customers in more than 4,500 tier-2 cities and beyond.
