India’s Meesho raises $125m from Naspers, Facebook, others

Meesho, an online marketplace for Indian entrepreneurs and consumers, has secured US$125 million in a funding round led by Naspers.

Facebook and existing investors SAIF, Sequoia Capital India, Shunwei Capital, RPS Ventures, Venture Highway, and former Vodafone Group CEO Arun Sarin also participated in the round.

Photo credit: Stanisic Vladimir

Meesho connects independent resellers with suppliers to curate a catalog of goods and services to sell. These “social sellers” then sell within their social networks on WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. Many of them are small retailers, women, students, and retired citizens, with 70% being homemakers.

The platform also provides logistics and payment tools.

Meesho plans to use the new funds to further develop its platform to accommodate new products and to enhance its analytics and machine learning tech to handle national scale.

The fresh capital will also allow the company to reach remote customers not serviced by traditional ecommerce marketplaces, according to a statement. It will also support Meesho’s aim to grow its community of female entrepreneurs.

“The exciting growth of ecommerce in India has hidden the fact that over 90% of Indians either can’t or won’t use it in its current form.” Meesho co-founder and CEO Vidit Aatrey said. “They want online shopping that enables them to buy from small businesses they trust. Meesho provides a way for these customers to get what they need – and we believe it is the future of online shopping for the next 500 million consumers.”

The company claims to have a network of more than 2 million social sellers across 700 towns in India, creating a distribution channel for 15,000 suppliers in traditional manufacturing hubs. It aims to create 20 million entrepreneurs by 2020.