India Will get fifth Unicorn In 2021 As Meesho Raises $300 Mn

The 12 months 2021 appears to have began on a optimistic word for Indian entrepreneurs as increasingly more startups entered the coveted Unicorn membership, the most recent being the social ecommerce platform Meesho.

The Fb-backed startup on Monday introduced elevating $300 million in a brand new funding spherical led by SoftBank Imaginative and prescient Fund 2. The spherical additionally noticed participation from current buyers reminiscent of Prosus Ventures, Shunwei Capital, Enterprise Freeway, Knollwood Funding and Fb.

The funding has virtually trebled the corporate’s valuation to $2.1 billion, making it into the distinguished Unicorn membership (startups with valuation above $1 billion). The startup has raised $125 million in 2019, which then had valued it to $700 million.

Meesho is an Indian-origin social commerce platform based by Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal. The platform goals to allow girls from throughout India to develop into unbiased by beginning their very own enterprise. The 2015 based startup allows small companies and people to begin their on-line shops through social channels reminiscent of WhatsApp, Fb, Instagram, amongst different social media platforms. The startup boasts of incomes belief of over 10 million resellers throughout the nation.

Commenting on the fund increase Vidit Aatrey, founder and chief govt officer mentioned, “We take satisfaction on the price of pace and the dimensions at which Meesho has grown, positively impacting hundreds of thousands of lives, and creating exponential studying alongside the way in which. With the brand new spherical of funding, we’re extraordinarily thrilled to have SoftBank onboard. We’re targeted on increasing our imaginative and prescient — from serving to aspiring girls entrepreneurs to creating Meesho as a single ecosystem that may allow all small companies in India to succeed on-line. Within the final one 12 months, we have now seen great progress throughout small companies and entrepreneurs in search of to maneuver their companies on-line. And with our new imaginative and prescient we’ll allow 100 million small companies to begin, succeed and lead their operations on-line with Meesho as their accomplice of their journey.”

Commenting on the funding, Sumer Juneja, accomplice at SoftBank Funding Advisers mentioned that the financial institution has been monitoring the expansion of the startup for the final 18 months and is impressed by its progress.

“We consider Meesho offers an environment friendly platform for SME suppliers and social resellers to onboard the e-commerce revolution in India and assist them present personalised expertise to customers.”

The startup until date has delivered orders to over 100,000 registered suppliers to over 26,000 pin codes in additional than 4,800 cities, producing greater than INR 500 crore in earnings for particular person entrepreneurs.