Meesho Must Go On

Meesho pioneered the social commerce trend in India six years ago, providing a source of income for millions of homemakers. Its future is riddled with competition from fellow startups and e-commerce behemoths. The good news is the market is vast.

- PRERNA LIDHOO

VIDIT AATREY 31

SANJEEV BARNWAL 31

CO-FOUNDERS, MEESHO

WHEN LIFE GIVES you a lockdown, sell groceries. That was the mantra for most e-commerce players last year when the pandemic shuttered the country. Meesho was no different. The social commerce company launched ‘Farmiso’ in March 2020, running the online grocery business much like its other verticals such as fashion and beauty—using its platform to connect small businesses with resellers, mostly homemakers looking to supplement their family income, who in turn find customers amongst their social groups.

The Bengaluru-based company raised $300 million in April, in part to grow ‘Farmiso’ over the next 18 months. That SoftBank-led funding round vaulted Meesho into the unicorn club with a $2.1 billion valuation, three times its value in 2019. This easily makes Meesho the biggest player in India’s nascent social commerce market, whose worth, according to Bain & Co. and Sequoia Capital India, could balloon from $1.5 billion-$2 billion today to nearly $70 billion by 2030. Not bad for a company that pioneered the social commerce trend in India when it was founded six years ago by two Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, alumni, Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal.

Meesho—short for