Meeshoan Indian e-commerce rival to Flipkart, owned by Amazon and Walmart, is about to launch a roughly $606 million initial public offering marked by token sell-offs by early backers and no sales by big names like SoftBank and Prosus.
The decade-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 about ₹501 billion (about $5.60 billion). The startup was last valued at around $5 billion in the private markets in 2021.
Meesho is expected 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 it is reportedly exploring a possible spin-off of its operations in India, possibly for a future listing.
Some of Meesho’s early shareholders are selling during the IPO, with Elevation Capital shedding just over 4% of its stake, Sequoia Capital spinoff Peak XV Partners selling about 3% and Y Combinator trimming about 14%. prospectus (PDF file). Larger lenders – including SoftBank, Prosus and Fidelity – are not selling shares.
Meesho’s offer for sale has been reduced by about 40% from the draft prospectus filed in October, to 105.5 million shares, valued at ₹11.7 billion (about $131 million) at the top end of the price range. However, its co-founders, Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Kumar, are selling more than they had planned in the draft prospectus, with their combined offer rising to 32 million shares from about 23.5 million previously, helping to offset reduced participation from other shareholders.
Founded in 2015, Meesho started as a social commerce platform targeting aspiring online shoppers via WhatsApp before growing 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 put increasing pressure on bigger rivals Amazon and Flipkart. The Bengaluru-based company uses a commission-light model, where it earns mainly from logistics fees, advertising and other services, while charging commissions on products sold through the separate Meesho Mall channel.
Meesho reported revenue from operations of ₹55.78 billion (about $624.0 million) for the six months ended September 30, compared with ₹43.11 billion (about $482.0 million) a year earlier, according to the prospectus. The net value of goods rose 44% year-on-year to ₹191.94 billion (about $2.15 billion). However, losses widened, with Meesho posting an adjusted pre-tax loss of ₹4.33 billion (about $48.4 million) for the September half-year 2025, compared to ₹0.24 billion (about $2.7 million) a year earlier.
Over the past twelve months, Meesho recorded 234.20 million transacting users: unique consumers who purchased at least one product on the platform. During the same period, the company had 706,471 merchants transacting annually, defined as merchants who received at least one order in the year.
Meesho also leverages an extensive creator network for product discovery, with more than 50,000 active content creators generating at least one placed order through their content in the past year.
“Many Indians are only experiencing e-commerce for the first time on Meesho, and like the rest of us, they will be buying more and more things and more and more on this platform over the next decade,” Mohit Bhatnagar, managing director at Peak XV Partners, told TechCrunch. “That’s why long-term conviction is the reason to maintain as much of our commitment as we can.”
Peak
Meesho has positioned itself as a value-oriented platform – unlike Amazon and Flipkart, which it views as convenience-oriented 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.
“When you look at the value-oriented sector, you are trying to appeal to mass-market consumers who sell all kinds of products and categories in a market model, which is typically asset-light,” Aatrey told reporters at Meesho’s press conference on Friday. “And the reason people come back is because they want access to more and more selection with an affordable value proposition.”
Meesho also sees the IPO improving its ability to attract talent and strengthening trust in the broader ecosystem, CFO Dhiresh Bansal told TechCrunch. He said a public listing will boost the company’s brand with suitors – including those from major tech companies – and have a positive knock-on effect on consumers, merchants and logistics partners by strengthening Meesho’s governance standards.
The IPO opens for public subscription on December 3, while the anchor book is scheduled for December 2. Approximately 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.
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