Internet commerce firm Meesho, operated by Fashnear Technologies, has received $192 million from its parent entity, Meesho Inc.
Meesho’s board has passed a special resolution to issue 6,512,342 equity shares to its US-based parent entity at an issue price of ₹2,408 per share to raise $192 million (₹1568 crore).
Last year, Meesho raised $570 million led by Fidelity Management and Facebook founder Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital Group at a $4.9 billion valuation.
“The internal movement of funds is a part of our larger treasury strategy as aligned with our Board and is a normal BAU practice. This is not related festive season or any other aspect of our operations,” the company said in a statement.
In a separate announcement, Meesho said posted its best festive sale performance during its flagship Meesho Mega Blockbuster Sale which was live from September 23 to 27, 2022. The company claims to have received customer orders of 3.34 crore orders during the five-day event, up 68% from the previous year’s sale. Nearly 60% of all orders came from Tier 4 cities.
Meesho has sellers mostly from tier-2 cities and targets customers in smaller towns. It garners nearly half of its sales from apparel. It also sells products such as kitchen appliances, jewellery, footwear and grocery. The startup has 700,000 sellers on its app and 125 million monthly active users.
A report by Redseer Strategy Consultants said e-commerce platforms have clocked sales of ₹24,500 crore or $3.5 billion in the first four days of the festive season sales that began last week, driven by demand for mobile phones and fashion items.
Founded in 2015 by IIT Delhi alumni Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal, Meesho started as a social commerce firm before growing into an e-commerce firm to directly challenge the likes of Flipkart and Amazon. It also competes with DealShare and CityMall. In April 2022, Meesho laid off around 200 employees as it revamped its grocery vertical to reduce redundancies as part of a cost-cutting exercise.
In April, Meesho integrated its grocery business Farmiso within its core application. The company rebranded Farmiso to Meesho Superstore.
It is also mulling ways to expand its grocery and live commerce segments, which are currently in an experimental stage.
Meesho reported revenue of around ₹793 crore in FY21, based on regulatory filings, which was earned from fulfilling order deliveries for sellers. The company has yet to announce its FY22 results. Companies need to file their FY22 annual statements by 30 September.
