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Meesho, an Indian e-commerce rival to Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart, is acceptable to motorboat a astir $606 cardinal IPO marked by token sell-downs from aboriginal backers and nary income from large names specified arsenic SoftBank and Prosus, signalling capitalist condemnation successful India’s booming online retail marketplace astatine a clip erstwhile tech shareholders globally person been cashing retired astatine listings.
The ten-year-old startup plans to terms its shares astatine ₹105–111 each, raising ₹42.50 cardinal (about $475 million) successful caller superior and a tiny remainder done secondary sales, giving Meesho a post-issue valuation of astir ₹501 cardinal (around $5.60 billion). The startup was last valued astatine astir $5 billion successful the backstage markets successful 2021.
Meesho is acceptable to go the archetypal large horizontal e-commerce level successful India to spell public, with rival Flipkart expected to prosecute an IPO adjacent year and Amazon reportedly exploring a imaginable spin-off of its India operations, perchance for a aboriginal listing.
Some of Meesho’s aboriginal shareholders are selling successful the IPO, with Elevation Capital offloading conscionable implicit 4% of its stake, Sequoia Capital spin-off Peak XV Partners selling astir 3%, and Y Combinator trimming astir 14%, per the prospectus (PDF). Larger backers — including SoftBank, Prosus, and Fidelity — are not selling immoderate shares.
Meesho’s offer-for-sale information has been chopped by astir 40% from the draught prospectus filed successful October to 105.5 cardinal shares, worthy ₹11.7 cardinal (roughly $131 million) astatine the apical of the terms band. The co-founders, Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Kumar, are, however, selling much than they had planned successful the draught prospectus, with their combined connection rising to 32 cardinal shares from astir 23.5 cardinal earlier, helping marque up for reduced information from different shareholders.
Founded successful 2015, Meesho began arsenic a societal commerce level that targeted first-time online shoppers done WhatsApp earlier evolving into a full-fledged marketplace. It has since carved retired a fast-growing niche with a low-cost exemplary tailored to India’s price-sensitive consumers and tiny merchants — an attack that has progressively pressured larger rivals Amazon and Flipkart. The Bengaluru-based institution uses a commission-light model, earning chiefly from logistics fees, advertising, and different services, portion charging commissions connected products sold done its abstracted Meesho Mall channel.
Meesho reported gross from operations of ₹55.78 cardinal (about $624.0 million) for the six months ended September 30, up from ₹43.11 cardinal (around $482.0 million) a twelvemonth earlier, per its prospectus. Net merchandise worth roseate 44% year-over-year to ₹191.94 cardinal (roughly $2.15 billion). However, its losses widened, with Meesho posting a restated nonaccomplishment earlier taxation of ₹4.33 cardinal (around $48.4 million) for the September 2025 half-year, compared with ₹0.24 cardinal (about $2.7 million) a twelvemonth earlier.
In the past 12 months, Meesho recorded 234.20 cardinal transacting users — unsocial consumers who purchased astatine slightest 1 merchandise connected the platform. Over the aforesaid period, the institution had 706,471 yearly transacting sellers, defined arsenic sellers who received astatine slightest 1 bid successful the year.
Meesho besides uses a sprawling creator web for merchandise discovery, with much than 50,000 progressive contented creators generating astatine slightest 1 placed bid done their contented implicit the past year.
“Many Indians are lone experiencing e-commerce for the archetypal clip connected Meesho, and overmuch similar the remainder of us, implicit the adjacent decade, they volition bargain much and much things and much and much often connected this platform,” Mohit Bhatnagar, managing manager astatine Peak XV Partners, told TechCrunch. “That’s wherefore semipermanent condemnation is the crushed to clasp connected to arsenic overmuch of our involvement arsenic we tin clasp connected to.”
Peak XV — which archetypal invested successful Meesho successful 2018 during its Sequoia Capital India epoch and holds astir 13% crossed its 2 vehicles — is selling astir 17.38 cardinal shares successful the IPO.
Meesho has positioned itself arsenic a value-focused level — dissimilar Amazon and Flipkart, which it sees arsenic convenience-led players. In that respect, the institution compares itself with different value-driven marketplaces specified arsenic Pinduoduo successful China, Shopee successful Southeast Asia, and Mercado Libre successful Latin America.
“If you look astatine the value-focused bucket, here, you are trying to entreaty to wide marketplace consumers selling each kinds of products and categories successful a marketplace concern model, which tends to beryllium plus light,” Aatrey told reporters during Meesho’s property league connected Friday. “And the crushed radical travel backmost is due to the fact that they privation entree to much and much enactment with the affordability worth proposition.”
Meesho besides sees the IPO improving its quality to pull endowment and strengthening assurance crossed its wider ecosystem, CFO Dhiresh Bansal told TechCrunch. He said a nationalist listing boosts the company’s marque with occupation candidates — including those coming from large tech firms — and has a affirmative knock-on effect connected consumers, sellers and logistics partners by reinforcing Meesho’s governance standards.
The IPO volition unfastened for nationalist subscription connected December 3, with the anchor publication scheduled for December 2. About 75% of the connection is reserved for qualified organization buyers, 10% for retail investors and 15% for non-institutional investors.
SoftBank did not respond to a petition for comment.
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