Meesho, a Bengaluru-based social commerce startup, has raised undisclosed funding from the social media titan Facebook. Probably, this will the first funding investment form Facebook in India.
Vidit Aatrey, Co-founder Meesho, wrote a statement that the investment helps in efforts to allow independent entrepreneurs to build businesses and increase the client base through social channels. The company also got funds from investors like Shunwei Capital, Sequoia India, and DST Partners for $65.2 Million.
About Meesho
Meesho is a social commerce platform based on reseller network of homemakers and SMBs, who sell products in their network via social channels.
Meesho is started in 2015 by IIT graduates Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal. The products include fashion, lifestyle and more products and consists of 20,000+ homepreneurs over 150 cities in India.
The company has raised a total of $65.2 Million till date by Facebook, Y Combinator, Sequoia Capital, Shunwei Capital and other investors. It claims to have 15k+ suppliers with 2 Million resellers across India.
Facebook India, MD Ajit Mohan in an interview with CNBC-TV18, said that Meesho stood out from its competitors in specific aspects. The duo had the perfect framework in business building and bringing a lot of passion and problem-solving.
As per the startup, there are 80% of female entrepreneurs as its users. Mohan said that,
“So the Meesho social commerce model is fuelling entrepreneurship as well as it is fuelling women entrepreneurs.”
Facebook with this investment is looking to guide co-founders by supporting them with resources to enhance the entrepreneurship model.
These days Social e-commerce became a buzzword. Nearly 500 million Indians depend on the Internet in everyday life. As per Statista, over 2.14 billion worldwide may buy goods and services by 2021.
Meesho like startups are leveraging the user bases of social media platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook to build e-commerce solutions to its users.
