Meesho, an Indian e-commerce rival to Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart, is ready to launch a roughly $606 million IPO marked by token sell-downs from early backers and no gross sales from huge names akin to SoftBank and Prosus, signalling investor conviction in India’s booming on-line retail market at a time when tech shareholders globally have been cashing out at listings.
The ten-year-old startup plans to cost its shares at ₹105–111 every, elevating ₹42.50 billion (about $475 million) in contemporary capital and a small the rest by way of secondary gross sales, giving Meesho a post-issue valuation of roughly ₹501 billion (round $5.60 billion). The startup was final valued at about $5 billion within the non-public markets in 2021.
Meesho is ready to turn out to be the primary main horizontal e-commerce platform in India to go public, with rival Flipkart anticipated to pursue an IPO subsequent 12 months and Amazon reportedly exploring a possible spin-off of its India operations, probably for a future itemizing.
A few of Meesho’s early shareholders are promoting within the IPO, with Elevation Capital offloading simply over 4% of its stake, Sequoia Capital spin-off Peak XV Companions promoting round 3%, and Y Combinator trimming about 14%, per the prospectus (PDF). Bigger backers — together with SoftBank, Prosus, and Constancy — usually are not promoting any shares.
Meesho’s offer-for-sale portion has been reduce by about 40% from the draft prospectus filed in October to 105.5 million shares, price ₹11.7 billion (roughly $131 million) on the high of the value band. The co-founders, Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Kumar, are, nonetheless, promoting greater than they’d deliberate within the draft prospectus, with their mixed supply rising to 32 million shares from about 23.5 million earlier, serving to make up for lowered participation from different shareholders.
Based in 2015, Meesho started as a social commerce platform that focused first-time web shoppers by way of WhatsApp earlier than evolving right into a full-fledged market. It has since carved out a fast-growing area of interest with a low-cost mannequin tailor-made to India’s price-sensitive shoppers and small retailers — an strategy that has more and more pressured bigger rivals Amazon and Flipkart. The Bengaluru-based firm makes use of a commission-light mannequin, incomes primarily from logistics charges, promoting, and different companies, whereas charging commissions on merchandise offered by way of its separate Meesho Mall channel.
Meesho reported income from operations of ₹55.78 billion (about $624.0 million) for the six months ended September 30, up from ₹43.11 billion (round $482.0 million) a 12 months earlier, per its prospectus. Web merchandise worth rose 44% year-over-year to ₹191.94 billion (roughly $2.15 billion). Nevertheless, its losses widened, with Meesho posting a restated loss earlier than tax of ₹4.33 billion (round $48.4 million) for the September 2025 half-year, in contrast with ₹0.24 billion (about $2.7 million) a 12 months earlier.
Within the final 12 months, Meesho recorded 234.20 million transacting customers — distinctive shoppers who bought at the least one product on the platform. Over the identical interval, the corporate had 706,471 annual transacting sellers, outlined as sellers who acquired at the least one order within the 12 months.
Meesho additionally makes use of a sprawling creator community for product discovery, with greater than 50,000 energetic content material creators producing at the least one positioned order by way of their content material over the previous 12 months.
“Many Indians are solely experiencing e-commerce for the primary time on Meesho, and very like the remainder of us, over the subsequent decade, they are going to purchase increasingly issues and increasingly steadily on this platform,” Mohit Bhatnagar, managing director at Peak XV Companions, advised TechCrunch. “That’s why long-term conviction is the rationale to carry on to as a lot of our stake as we will maintain on to.”
Peak XV — which first invested in Meesho in 2018 throughout its Sequoia Capital India period and holds about 13% throughout its two autos — is promoting round 17.38 million shares within the IPO.
Meesho has positioned itself as a value-focused platform — not like Amazon and Flipkart, which it sees as convenience-led gamers. In that respect, the corporate compares itself with different value-driven marketplaces akin to Pinduoduo in China, Shopee in Southeast Asia, and Mercado Libre in Latin America.
“In case you have a look at the value-focused bucket, right here, you are attempting to enchantment to mass market shoppers promoting every kind of merchandise and classes in a market enterprise mannequin, which tends to be asset gentle,” Aatrey advised reporters throughout Meesho’s press convention on Friday. “And the rationale individuals come again is as a result of they need entry to increasingly choice with the affordability worth proposition.”
Meesho additionally sees the IPO bettering its capability to draw expertise and strengthening confidence throughout its wider ecosystem, CFO Dhiresh Bansal advised TechCrunch. He stated a public itemizing boosts the corporate’s model with job candidates — together with these coming from huge tech companies — and has a optimistic knock-on impact on shoppers, sellers and logistics companions by reinforcing Meesho’s governance requirements.
The IPO will open for public subscription on December 3, with the anchor ebook scheduled for December 2. About 75% of the supply is reserved for certified institutional consumers, 10% for retail traders and 15% for non-institutional traders.
SoftBank didn’t reply to a request for remark.