SoftBank stays in as Meesho $606M IPO becomes India’s first major e-commerce listing

Meesho, the Indian e-commerce rival to Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart, is set to launch a roughly $606 million initial public offering featuring token sales from early backers and no sales from big names like SoftBank and Prosus, signaling investors’ conviction in India’s booming online retail market at a time when technology shareholders globally are cashing out on listings.

The ten-year-old startup plans to price its shares at INR 105-111 each, raising INR 42.50 billion (about US$475 million) in fresh capital and a small rest through secondary sales, giving Meesho a post-issue valuation of about INR 501 billion (about US$5.60 billion). The startup was last valued at around $5 billion in private markets in 2021.

Meesho is set to become India’s first major horizontal e-commerce platform to go public, rival Flipkart is expected to seek an IPO next year, and Amazon is said to be exploring a potential spin-off of its India operations, possibly for a future listing.

Some of Meesho’s early shareholders are selling in the IPO, with Elevation Capital offloading just over 4% of its stake, Sequoia Capital spin-off Peak XV Partners selling about 3%, and Y Combinator trimming about 14%, according to the prospectus (PDF). Major backers — including SoftBank, Prosus and Fidelity — are not selling any shares.

Meesho’s offer stake has been reduced by about 40% from a draft prospectus filed in October to 105.5 million shares, worth INR 11.7 billion (about $131 million) at the top of the price range. However, the co-founders, Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Kumar, are selling more than they planned in their draft prospectus, with their combined offering rising to 32 million shares from about 23.5 million earlier, helping to offset lower participation from other shareholders.

Founded in 2015, Meesho began as a social commerce platform that first targeted online shoppers through WhatsApp before evolving into a full-fledged marketplace. Since then, it has created a fast-growing niche through a low-cost model tailored to price-sensitive consumers and small merchants in India — an approach that has increasingly put pressure on larger rivals Amazon and Flipkart. The Bengaluru-based company uses a light commission model, earning mainly from logistics fees, advertising and other services, while charging commissions on products sold through its separate Meesho Mall channel.

Meesho reported revenue from operations of INR 55.78 billion (about US$624.0 million) for the six months ended September 30, up from INR 43.11 billion (about US$482.0 million) a year earlier, according to its prospectus. Net merchandise value rose 44% year-on-year to 191.94 billion rupees (about $2.15 billion). However, its losses widened, with Meesho recording a restated pre-tax loss of INR 4.33 billion (about US$48.4 million) for the half-year in September 2025, compared to INR 0.24 billion (about US$2.7 million) in the previous year.

In the last 12 months, Meesho has recorded 234.20 million transacting users – unique consumers who have purchased at least one product on the platform. During the same period, the company had 706,471 annual transacting sellers, defined as sellers who received at least one order during the year.

Meesho also uses its sprawling creator network for product discovery, with over 50,000 active creators having generated at least one order through their content over the past year.

“Many Indians are experiencing e-commerce for the first time only on Meesho, and like the rest of us, over the next decade, they will buy more and more things more frequently on this platform,” Mohit Bhatnagar, managing director at Peak XV Partners, told TechCrunch. “That’s why long-term conviction is why we want to retain as much of our stake as possible.”

Peak

Meesho has positioned itself as a value-focused platform — unlike Amazon and Flipkart, which it sees as convenience-driven players. In this regard, the company compares itself with other value-driven marketplaces such as Pinduoduo in China, Shopee in Southeast Asia, and Mercado Libre in Latin America.

“If you look at the value-focused group, here you are trying to attract mass market consumers who sell all types of products and categories in a marketplace business model, which tends to be asset light,” Atri told reporters during Meesho’s press conference on Friday. “The reason people are coming back is because they want access to more and more choices with a value proposition with affordability.”

Meesho also sees the IPO improving its ability to attract talent and boost trust across its broader ecosystem, CFO Dirish Bansal told TechCrunch. He said the public listing strengthens the company’s brand through job candidates – including those from major technology companies – and has a positive impact on consumers, sellers and logistics partners by strengthening Meesho’s governance standards.

The IPO will open for public subscription on December 3, with the base book scheduled to go public on December 2. About 75% of the offering is for qualified institutional buyers, 10% for retail investors and 15% for non-institutional investors.

SoftBank did not respond to a request for comment.