Meesho, India’s largest reselling website, has negotiated a $250 million funding round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund, the Economic Times has reported.
The round, if completed, will value Meesho at between $1.5bn and $1.8bn, making it India’s 40th tech “unicorn” company – that is, a privately-backed venture worth a billion dollars or more. Its previous round, a Series D completed in August 2019, raised $125m from South African Internet retailers Naspers and social media giant Facebook.
Meesho currently claims 70m customers and 10m resellers on its site, which was founded in 2015 in Bengaluru, widely acknowledged as India’s tech capital. Last year its revenue leapt almost fourfold to $42m.
Despite heavy competition from the likes of Dealshare and Glowroad, Meesho has maintained its number one spot in India’s social commerce sector. The industry is expected to reach a value of up to $70bn by 2030 according to Bain & Company, a consultant.