Massachusetts-based Fidelity Investments, an asset management company that has invested in several publicly listed as well as privately held Indian companies, has slashed a valuation of a company in its startup portfolio.
The firm, which has backed Pine Labs, HDFC Bank, Reliance among others, has cut the face value of its shareholding in social commerce unicorn Meesho in its books by 35% to $27.8 million as of 29 December, as per its latest filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Previously, it had increased the value of its shareholding to $43.24 million as of 31 July 2023, which put the estimated valuation of Meesho at about $5.04 billion at the time. In October 2023, the company again cut the unicorn’s valuation to about $4 billion.
After the latest markdown, the company is valued at about $3.2 billion.
The e-commerce company, which was founded by Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal in 2015, enables small businesses and entrepreneurs to sell their products directly to customers on the platform without any fee. It pits against the likes of Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart in India’s e-commerce space.
Fidelity had invested $42 million in Meesho as part of its Series F funding in which the company raised $570 million at a valuation of $4.9 billion in September 2021. Other marquee investors that participated in the round included B Capital Group, Prosus Ventures, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Facebook, Footpath Ventures, Trifecta Capital and Good Capital.
In April 2021, Meesho had achieved unicorn status after it raised $300 million led by SoftBank. The fund-raise then valued it at $2.1 billion--a three-fold jump from its previous funding round of $125 million in 2019 when it was valued at $700 million.
In October 2023, early-stage VC firm Venture Highway sold its part of its holding in the unicorn to homegrown private equity firm WestBridge Capital with returns of over 50x.
