First Time Facebook Has Invested In This Indian Startup- Meesho

First time Facebook has Invested In This Indian Startup- Meesho

On june 13, the California based social media giant said it has invested an undisclosed amount in exchange of minority stake in an Indian startup Meesho which connects small sellers with customers through platforms such as Whatsapp, facebook and Instagram. It also provides them with sourcing, logistics and payment tools.

Since Facebook has started operating in India, this is the first time they have invested in an Indian startup which is Meesho. Meesho is a bengaluru Based startup founded in 2015 by vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal who where the students of Indian Institute of technology Delhi (IIT). Meesho is a platform which enables resellers, largly comprising of housewives in india to sell products of their choice through social media networks like facebook, instagram, whatsapp, twitter etc. Meesho has around 2 million resellers mostly comprising women which is quite an interesting thing in india. Earlier meesho has raised around $65 million from Sequoia India, DST Partners and Shunwei Capital and last year meesho was valued around $250 million.

Co- founder and CEO Aatrey in a statement on the company’s website said “We share a common goal with facebook to enable community and help small business grow.

Facebook has not disclosed the investment amount but some sources claim that meesho has received around $20-25 million investment.

Why Only Meesho?

Social commerce has been a massive trend in contries like china and south Korea so it makes sense for facebook to find the similar companies in other countries for making some future investments.

Also, at the time when facebook is facing heat from the world and also Indian government over the topic of data privacy, this might be a good move to improve it’s image. Meesho’s unique strategy which focuses on housewives and students for the company’s growth can also be a reason which attracted facebook. There are more male online users in india than female so it’s evident that growth will come in near future.

Over the past decade, the Indian e-commerce industry has expanded massively with Flipkart, snapdeal, Paytm mall and other foreign e-commerce giants coming in india, like Amazon and E-bay. After all this rapid growth still india’s e-commerce market is smaller than few countries like china so the growth is evident.In the meantime, number of social media users in india is also increasing, According to few researches 80% of Indian merchants use social media to reach their potential customer.Facebook’s this move might result in the positive growth of facebook in india market.