Google To Invest $50 Million In Indian Social Commerce Startup, Meesho

Google has made contact with social commerce startup, Meesho with a bid to invest over $50 million in the Bangalore located company.

Meesho, an Indian social e-commerce company, with headquarters in Bangalore had recently secured $570 million in a financing round will determine whether to accede to Google’s request with both having had discussions on the matter.

Google, which has invested in over 6 startups in India, acoording to sources hasn’t made the investment but will hope to add the Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal founded brand to its list of startups it has shares in.

Meesho, founded December 2015,  enables small businesses and individuals to have their online stores through the use of social channels like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, counts Facebook, B Capital, SoftBank, Sequoia Capital India, Y Combinator and Elevation Capital among its earliest investors.

The Indian company operates a three-sided marketplace that enables the connection of suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and resellers with customers on social media platforms, with the resellers buying the listed products by Meesho from the suppliers, while they make commission on each transaction when they sell to customers.

Meesho had in June 2019 became the first India startup to be invested upon by Facebook and by August 2021, was India’s most downloaded app across multiple categories.

Vidit Aartrey, one of the co-founders of the startup had in an interview with TechCrunch last month affirmed that 13 million entrepreneurs and more than 100,000 suppliers were using Meesho as of April 2021, asserting that the company had since grown more than thrice.

Analysts at Financial Advice and Private Wealth Management firm, Bernstein  had predicted that the social commerce market is expected to be worth up to $20 billion in value by 2025, up from about $1 billion to $1.5 billion last year, bringing to the fore the world’s second-largest internet market.

“Social commerce has the ability to empower more than 40 million small entrepreneurs across India. Today, 85% of sellers using social commerce are small, offline-oriented retailers who use social channels to open up new growth opportunities,” the Bernstein wrote.

Google on its own has announced its commitment to invest up to $10 billion in the South Asian country for the next couple of years, while in the past backing Indian startups like Glance and DailyHunt. YouTube from Google also acquired SimSim, another social commerce startup, July 2021 among other investments in the country.