India's Meesho raises $50m Series C
Meesho, an Indian e-commerce platform focused on small businesses and emerging brands, has raised a $50 million Series C round led by Shunwei Capital, RPS Ventures, and DST Partners.
Existing investors SAIF Partners, Y Combinator, Venture Highway, and Sequoia Capital India - all of which contributed to Meesho’s $11.5 million Series B in June - also took part in this round. The company will use the new capital to add more product categories and grow its technology team.
Founded in 2015, Meesho operates an online marketplace through which small businesses and micro-entrepreneurs – typically women working independently from home – in India can sell products sourced from domestic and overseas manufacturers. The platform includes tools for building and promoting online businesses through popular social media channels, as well as for payments, logistics and supply chain management.
Meesho claims to have more than one million resellers on the platform, which typically earn INR20,000-25,000 ($274-342) per month. Non-English speaking users account for 30% of its daily traffic, and the company aims to grow this audience by adding support for more Indian local languages to the seven it currently supports.
Shunwei was founded by Xiaomi founder Lei Jun and recently closed its fourth US dollar-denominated VC fund at $1.2 billion. The GP focuses on early to mid-stage investments in internet, e-commerce, and social networking businesses, and has backed more than 100 companies since its inception.
Most of Shunwei’s investments are in China, but the firm has recently begun investing in India as well, backing a number of early-stage technology companies such as used car trading platform Truebil, mobile gaming start-up Mech Mocha, and Cashify, an online marketplace for used smart phones and electronics.
RPS Ventures was founded this year by Kabir Misra, a managing partner at SoftBank Capital, and is reportedly seeking $250 million for its debut fund. The firm will pursue early to mid-stage investments in technology companies based in the US, India, and Southeast Asia.
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