Meesho to host biggest festival sale event after crossing $4.9 bn valuation

Social e-commerce startup says shopping gala will help local businesses across country to sell online.

Meesho, a social e-commerce startup, has announced the launch of its first major sale event, saying it will have over one lakh new sellers and daily orders from customers in India’s tier-two cities.

Meesho will host the Maha Indian Shopping League October 6 to 9 after raising $570 million in a funding round led by Fidelity Management & Research Company and B Capital Group, a venture capital firm backed by Facebook cofounder Eduardo Luiz Saverin. Existing investors Prosus Ventures (formerly Naspers Ventures), SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and Facebook had also participated in this round, besides others. The new funds doubled the company’s valuation more to $4.9 billion in less than five months.

“We are excited to reimagine Bharat’s festive shopping experiences with the first edition of Maha Indian Shopping League,” said Vidit Aatrey, founder and CEO of Meesho. “To truly democratize internet commerce, we have lowered entry barriers and improved ease of business for sellers, enabling more local businesses across the country to join us and sell online.”

Early this year, the company announced an industry-first 0 per cent seller commission model that saw a 10x growth in sellers joining the platform. “This ultimately improves access to a range of quality products for all Tier 2+ shoppers,” said Aatrey. “Today 5 per cent of Indian households shop with us every day, and we’re expecting to make festive shopping a simpler, more rewarding experience for many more.”

“We are expecting around three times growth compared to where we were in September,” said Utkrishta Kumar (UK), vice president and GM, business at Meesho. “In terms of the benchmark for growth, we are going to grow 10X than we have typically grown in a sale event compared to last year.”

The company has hosted sale events previously. But Kumar said with Maha Indian Shopping League, the company for the first time is running a focused campaign at such a massive scale.

“And while traditional sale events are focused on discount-based pricing, our flagship sale event is adding to the festive cheer by also promising the biggest rewards of the season,” said Kumar.

Meesho’s sale event will offer consumers a chance to win Rs 20 crore worth of prizes.

Meesho is competing with other social e-commerce firms, such as DealShare, BulBul, GlowRoad, Mall91, and simsim. E-commerce firm Flipkart is also betting big on social commerce, which is the use of social network communities to drive e-commerce sales.