Meesho, an Indian e-commerce rival to Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart, is set to launch a roughly $606 million initial public offering marked by token sell-offs from early backers and no sales from big names like SoftBank and Prosus, signaling investor confidence in India’s booming online retail market at a time when tech shareholders globally have been cashing in on IPOs.
The ten-year-old startup plans to price its shares at ₹105-111 each, raising ₹42.50 billion (about ₹475 million) in fresh capital and a small remainder through secondary sales, giving Meesho a post-issue valuation of around ₹501 billion (about $5.60 billion). The startup was last valued at around $5 billion in the private markets by 2021.
Meesho is set to become the first major horizontal e-commerce platform in India to go public, with rival Flipkart expected to pursue an IPO next year and Amazon reportedly exploring a potential spin-off of its operations in India, potentially for a future IPO.
Some of Meesho’s early shareholders are selling in the IPO, with Elevation Capital offloading just over 4% of its stake, Sequoia Capital spin-off Peak XV Partners selling about 3% and Y Combinator trimming about 14%, according to the prospectus (PDF). Major backers – including SoftBank, Prosus and Fidelity – are not selling any shares.
Meesho’s offer-for-sale portion has been cut by about 40% from the draft prospectus filed in October to 105.5 million shares worth 11.7 billion INR (about $131 million) at the top of the price band. However, co-founders Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Kumar are selling more than they planned in the draft prospectus, increasing their total offering to 32 million shares from about 23.5 million previously, helping to offset reduced participation from other shareholders.
Founded in 2015, Meesho began as a social commerce platform targeting first-time online shoppers through WhatsApp before evolving into a full-fledged marketplace. It has since carved out a fast-growing niche with a low-cost model tailored to India’s price-sensitive consumers and small merchants — an approach that has increasingly squeezed bigger rivals Amazon and Flipkart. The Bengaluru-based company uses a commission-light model, earning primarily from logistics fees, advertising and other services, while charging commission on products sold through its separate Meesho Mall channel.
Meesho reported revenue from operations of ₹55.78 billion (about US$624.0 million) for the six months ended September 30, up from ₹43.11 billion (about US$482.0 million) a year earlier, according to the prospectus. Net merchandise value increased 44% year-on-year to INR 191.94 billion (about USD 2.15 billion). However, its losses widened, with Meesho posting a restated pre-tax loss of ₹4.33 billion (about US$48.4 million) for the September 2025 half year, compared with ₹0.24 billion (about US$2.7 million) a year earlier.
In the last 12 months, Meesho recorded 234.20 million transaction users – unique consumers who purchased at least one product on the platform. During the same period, the company had 706,471 annual trading sellers, defined as sellers who received at least one order per year.
Meesho also uses an extensive creator network for product discovery, with more than 50,000 active content creators generating at least one placed order through their content over the past year.
“Many Indians are only experiencing e-commerce for the first time on Meesho, and like the rest of us, over the next decade, they will be buying more and more things and more and more often on this platform,” Mohit Bhatnagar, managing director at Peak XV Partners, told TechCrunch. “That’s why long-term conviction is the reason to hold on to as much of our stake as we can hold on to.”
Peak XV — which first invested in Meesho in 2018 during its Sequoia Capital India era and owns about 13% across its two vehicles — is selling about 17.38 million shares in the IPO.
Meesho has positioned itself as a value-focused platform — unlike Amazon and Flipkart, which it sees as convenience-led players. In that regard, the company compares itself to other value-driven marketplaces such as Pinduoduo in China, Shopee in Southeast Asia and Mercado Libre in Latin America.
“If you look at the value-focused bucket, here, you’re trying to appeal to mass-market consumers selling all kinds of products and categories in a marketplace business model that tends to be active light,” Aatrey told reporters during Meesho’s press conference on Friday. “And the reason people are coming back is because they want access to more and more selection with the value proposition.”
Meesho also sees the IPO improving its ability to attract talent and bolster trust across its broader ecosystem, CFO Dhiresh Bansal told TechCrunch. He said a public listing boosts the company’s brand with job candidates – including those coming from large tech companies – and has a positive knock-on effect on consumers, vendors and logistics partners by strengthening Meesho’s governance standards.
The IPO opens for public subscription on December 3, with the anchor book scheduled for December 2. About 75% of the offering is reserved for qualified institutional buyers, 10% for retail investors and 15% for non-institutional investors.
SoftBank did not respond to a request for comment.