Hyperlocal Delivery Player Dunzo And
InMobi’s Lock Screen Platform Glimpse.
NS Investment is part of Meesho’s recent financing round and values ​​the Bengaluru-based company at $4.9 billion.
Meesho in September
Raises $570M from US-Based Asset Managers Fidelity and Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital. Google’s investment will take the total size to more than $600 million.
Google and Meesho did not respond to ET’s queries till press time on Thursday.
ET was
Will report first on 24th September that Meesho were in talks to close a new funding Round that will ride on Fidelity and B Capital.
Google’s latest investment will bring Meesho’s total funding so far this year to more than $900 million, including
$300 million it raised from SoftBank Vision Fund II in April.
Google has made many investments India through Google Capital and more recently from its $10 billion
India Digitization Fund Which he announced in July last year. Its video sharing platform
YouTube acquires video social commerce startup The Sims in July
It is expected that Meesho will use the new capital to become a consumer-facing e-commerce entity that can effectively compete against major players Amazon India and Walmart-owned Flipkart.
Founded in 2015 by Vidit Atre and Sanjeev Barnwal, Meesho started its journey as a reseller platform social commerce The space, where a large base of women resellers sells products in the low-end, unbranded and long-tail ecommerce segments.
After SoftBank’s capital investment, Meesho’s intentions to compete in the big leagues became clear and since then it has been spending aggressively on advertisements and directly reaching consumers.
ETtechET had reported last month that Meesho’s
Cash burn to acquire new users is currently $20-$25 million. was on per month.
The social commerce startup plays in a market that has a slew of well-funded companies like DealShare,
Backed by New York-based investment firm Tiger Global, which competes with it in the grocery segment, and Singapore-headquartered C Ltd’s e-commerce platform Shopee, which
Recently entered the Indian market. Shopee.in sells non-branded fashion and home goods and has a small selection of groceries and food staples.
Flipkart also recently
Entered the social commerce space with Shopsy, which claims to have garnered over 250,000 sellers since its launch three months ago. Shopsy isn’t available for Grocery yet.
Earlier this year, Meesho switched to a zero percent commission model to get more sellers on its platform. Ahead of the festive season, Meesho added over 100,000 sellers through initiatives including free advertising credits and zero return shipping charges. It currently has 250,000 sellers on its platform.
Apart from operating in the long-tail unbranded category, Meesho is also investing a significant chunk of money in its online grocery delivery vertical Farmiso, for which it is aggressively hiring.
Farmiso operates on a community group buying model, driven by leaders.
Other social commerce platforms like DealShare and
City Mall Also sell through a similar model.
Atre told ET in an interview last month, “The logistics cost of traditional grocery models is very high and hence you will see that all your existing logistics companies are operating in top 4-8 cities even after many years. “When you leverage the community leaders model, you are able to serve this customer with a very low ticket size and offer them pricing while having a very strong unit economics base. Will continue to focus on more towns and meet the full online demand for groceries.
Google has more than doubled its investment in startups over the years, focusing on content and commerce.
Came in Is
Reliance Industries has invested $ 4.5 billion in Jio Platforms, and led
InMobi eyes $145 million investment, which also owns Roposo, a short-video platform.
The technology giant has also
Invested in Versace Innovations, the parent company of Indian content and news aggregator Dailyhunt. Recently, it
Participated in Dotpay’s Series A funding round, where it raised $27.5 million.