AZB & partners advise Arun Sarin and Sarin Family India LLC in Meesho deal

Bengaluru- and California-based Meesho, an online marketplace for resellers, on Monday said it has raised $125 million funding in a round led by South African investor Naspers. Social networking giant Facebook Inc., which had invested in Meesho earlier in June participated in this round. According to Meesho, former Vodafone Group chief executive Arun Sarin also participated in the round.

Meesho was founded in 2015 by IIT Delhi alumni Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal. Meesho allows sellers to set up an online shop. Meesho, based out of Bengaluru has an entity incorporated in California, US, called Meesho Inc. It has a network of more than two million “social sellers” across 700 towns in India.

Other existing investors that contributed to the round included venture capital firm SAIF Partners, Sequoia Capital India, RPS Ventures, a fund set up by former SoftBank managing director Kabir Misra, and Venture Highway.

According to Naspers the Meesho team has built a uniquely Indian solution utilising the reach and scale the internet enables, and harnesses and makes it available for small sellers to better serve customers for the benefit of all. Ashutosh Sharma, head of India investments, Naspers Ventures cited the phenomenal growth Meesho was already experiencing shows that Meesho has hit a sweet spot in the market and is well-poised to serve the next 500 million online shoppers in the country.

Naspers had led an investment of $540 million in Bengaluru based ed-tech and online tutoring startup Byju's in December last year. In the same month, it led a $1 billion investment in food-tech unicorn Swiggy to mark one of the single-largest capital infusions into an Indian startup.

AZB & partners who advised Arun Sarin and Sarin Family India LLC comprised of partners Anil Kasturi, Jaishree Tolani and Siddharth Khanna and associate Paulose Abraham.