Social e-commerce startup Meesho has closed a funding round of $125 million led by Naspers, with participation from Facebook and existing investors SAIF, Sequoia, Shunwei Capital, RPS and Venture Highway. Former Vodafone Group CEO Arun Sarin also participated in the round.

Share Market Live

NSE

Meesho had recently raised funds from Facebook, becoming the first Indian startup to be backed by the global social media giant.

ALSO READ: Facebook picks minority stake in Indian social commerce startup Meesho

Founded in 2015, Meesho is a social commerce online marketplace in India that connects independent resellers to suppliers to curate a catalog of goods and services to sell. The company also provides logistics and payment tools on the platform. These ‘social sellers’ then sell within their social networks on WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram.

Meesho currently has a network of over 2 million ‘social sellers’ across 700 towns in India, and offers a distribution channel for 15,000 suppliers in traditional manufacturing hubs. The focus is largely on apparel, home, wellness and electronics items, and Meesho aims at enabling 20 million entrepreneurs on its platform by 2020.

“I am particularly proud that Meesho has cut across gender, education levels, risk appetites and vocations to create livelihoods for people with no investment of their own. Our social sellers are small retailers, women, students and retired citizens, with 70 percent being homemakers who have found financial freedom and a business identity without having to step outside their homes,” said Vidit Aatrey, CEO, Meesho.

The company said the funds would help it reach entrepreneurs outside India’s major metro regions.

Meesho also plans to use the new funds to further build its technology platform to accommodate new product lines, and to evolve its analytics and machine learning platforms to handle national scale.

“Globally, Naspers identifies big areas of consumer spend that have not yet been significantly disrupted by technology and India e-commerce certainly fits the bill," said Ashutosh Sharma, Head of India Investments, Naspers Ventures.

"We were attracted to Meesho because the team have built a uniquely Indian solution that utilises the reach and scale the internet enables, and harnesses and makes it available for small sellers to better serve customers no matter where they live, for the benefit of all,” he added.