Meesho, an Indian-origin social commerce platform on Tuesday announced that the company had raised $50 million in Series C funding from new investors including Shunwei Capital, DST Partners, and RPS Ventures. Existing investors Sequoia India, SAIF Partners, Venture Highway, and Y Combinator also participated in the round.
Total funds raised by Meesho in three funding rounds is nearly $65 million.
Founded by IIT Delhi graduates Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal in December 2015, Meesho operates as an online marketplace, which connects resellers such as housewives, students, small business owners, directly with raw material suppliers. Resellers use WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms to promote products.
The firm will use the fresh funds to hire and scale its technology team, expand into more categories from its core lifestyle focus, and scale its domestic and international supply base. It has recently launched personal care and nutrition categories on its platform.
“With this new round of funding and the strong team we’ve built at Meesho, we are confident that we will continue to create value for our resellers and suppliers, and reach end consumers not served well by traditional e-commerce models,” said Vidit Aatrey, founder and CEO, Meesho.
Meesho has so far enabled over 20,00,000 social sellers across more than 500 towns, the company said. The company has 350 employees at present and has emerged as the most-funded startup in the social e-commerce space.
The startup faces competition in the space by Wooplr and Shop101.
“Social e-commerce is the next big thing in the e-commerce space of India. We strongly believe that Meesho’s social reselling model is highly suitable for the great number of new-to-Internet buyers. It’s our pleasure to work with the excellent team of Meesho on this exciting opportunity,” said Tuck Lye Koh, founder partner and CEO of Shunwei Capital.
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