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<keyword id="19913963" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="Indian-startups" source="keywords">Indian startups</keyword> have experienced a remarkable surge in funding during the first eight months of 2024, with a significant increase of 53.1% compared to the same period in 2023, according to a report by <keyword id="19910824" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="GlobalData" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="GlobalData" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="GlobalData">GlobalData</keyword>. From January to August 2024, Indian startups secured $7.5 billion in <keyword id="19913965" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="venture-capital" source="keywords">venture capital</keyword> funding, a sharp rise from the $4.9 billion raised during the same timeframe in the previous year. The report highlighted that not only did the total funding amount grow, but the average deal size also increased. A total of 780 venture capital deals were completed between January and August 2024, compared to 742 deals in the same period in 2023. These deals contributed to the $7.5 billion raised this year, marking a 5.1% rise in deal volume alongside the impressive 53.1% growth in funding value. GlobalData's report emphasised India's growing prominence in the Asia-Pacific region as a major hub for venture capital investments, ranking second only to China. Globally, India secured a spot among the top five countries in terms of both the number of venture capital deals and the total funding value. "The marked increase in venture funding value highlights the burgeoning investor confidence in India's <keyword id="19930407" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="startup-ecosystem" source="keywords">startup ecosystem</keyword>,” explains Aurojyoti Bose, lead analyst at GlobalData. "India's performance signals a promising landscape in the <keyword id="20948843" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="VC-funding" source="keywords">VC funding</keyword> market". From a global perspective, India accounted for 7.3% of the total venture capital deals between January and August 2024, with a 4.6% share of the total funding value. Additionally, India saw a notable increase in high-value VC deals, with several investments exceeding $100 million. Some of the standout funding rounds this year included <keyword id="12437554" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="zepto" source="Orion">Zepto</keyword>, which raised $665 million and $340 million in two separate rounds, Meesho's $300 million round, <keyword id="20201450" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="pharmeasy" source="keywords">PharmEasy</keyword> securing $216 million, OYO raising $173.5 million, and Radiance receiving $150 million. These impressive funding rounds underscore the continued momentum and strength of India’s startup ecosystem in 2024, setting the stage for further growth and innovation in the coming years. (With inputs from ANI)

Indian startup finance ecosystem still going strong, report shows over 50% growth in VC funding over last year

New Delhi: <keyword id="20845764" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="Indias-startup-ecosystem" source="keywords">India's startup ecosystem</keyword> experienced a surge in <keyword id="19913965" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="venture-capital" source="keywords">venture capital</keyword> (VC) funding during the first seven months of 2024, raising a total of USD 6.3 billion through 672 deals. This marks a 42.1 per cent year-on-year (YoY) increase in funding value, despite a modest 1.2 per cent rise in deal volume, according to a report by <keyword id="19910824" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="GlobalData" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="GlobalData" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="GlobalData">GlobalData</keyword>. The uptick in funding underscores investor confidence in India's <keyword id="21354516" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="startup-landscape" source="keywords">startup landscape</keyword>, even as global market conditions remain cautious. An analysis of GlobalData's Deals Database reveals that during the same period in 2023, India saw 664 VC deals with a disclosed funding value of USD 4.4 billion. Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, commented on the findings and said, "The massive jump in funding value, despite a modest 1.2 per cent growth in deal volume, can be attributed to some of the big-ticket deals announced during the review period. This also proves that even though VC investors remain cautious there is no dearth of money for promising startups." Some of the most notable <keyword id="20948843" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="VC-funding" source="keywords">VC funding</keyword> deals in India during January-July 2024 include USD 665 million raised by Zepto, USD 300 million by Meesho, USD 216 million by PharmEasy, USD 150 million by Radiance, USD 148 million by Kogta Financial, and USD 120 million by Rapido. India continues to stand out as a key player in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region for VC funding, trailing only China. It is also among the top five global markets in terms of both VC deal volume and value. During the January-July 2024 period, India accounted for 7 per cent of the total VC deals announced worldwide, while its share of the disclosed funding value was 4.3 per cent. Bose concluded, "Despite global economic uncertainties, India remains a pivotal market for VC activity, driven by a robust pipeline of promising startups that continue to attract significant capital. This trend reinforces India's position as a critical player in the global venture ecosystem, demonstrating resilience and growth even amid cautious investment sentiment."

First 7 months of FY25 see significant surge in VC funding to India's startups: GlobalData

<ul><li><keyword id="3480589" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="meesho" source="Orion">Meesho</keyword> is the new kid on the block that has emerged as a challenger to <keyword id="18635" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="amazon" source="Orion">Amazon</keyword> and <keyword id="6354742" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="flipkart" source="Orion">Flipkart</keyword> with 120 mn users</li><li>Aims to bring 100 mn small sellers across India online</li><li>The newly minted unicorn is looking at going public in less than two years after it turns profitable.</li></ul>Shaan Ansari is a 19-year old entrepreneur who lives in the historic city of Panipat, 100 kms north of Delhi, and he may never qualify for any list celebrating under-20 entrepreneurs, but his story is no less inspiring than Ranveer Singh’s character in Gully Boy. The pandemic put his father out of work and Ansari out of school back in 2020. When crisis struck, Ansari went scouting for opportunities online that would require zero investment and he found it in Meesho, a social commerce platform that is designed to help solo entrepreneurs and small businesses sell their wares to a wider audience. Ansari sourced bath mats and door mats made locally and started selling them on Meesho. When his suppliers could not meet the demand, Ansari borrowed money to start his own factory. Today he manufactures these mats from a rented factory, employs 50 people and clocks revenues of ₹30 lakh a month. It is transformational stories like Ansari’s that keep Meesho’’s co-founder and CEO Vidit Aatrey and his team going. Recalling his trip to Panipat, Aatrey, says, “The neighbourhood that Ansari lives in is a really humble one and his home actually doubles up as a warehouse. When I visited him, his staff and family offered dry fruits with chai. Ansari kept telling us how his family’s fortunes have changed after he discovered Meesho. As a team we travel every quarter to listen to sellers like Ansari on our platform and are now attempting to solve some of their other financial needs so that they don’t have to go to money lenders for working capital needs.” <div type="image" title="Meesho_1 (1)" height="900" width="1200" msid="93702892" hostid="261"></div> 100 million sellers to reach a billion buyers Aatrey’s dream is to get a million local businesses online so that they expand their markets by selling wares across India, irrespective of where they are located. In the last two years, this new kid on the block has emerged as a challenger to the Big Boys of e-commerce. Meesho - which is a short code for ‘my shop’ - has gotten bigger after the pandemic with 120 million monthly active users (MAUs) in a short span of time. Flipkart and Amazon have 200 million registered users each. Meesho’s target is to have 100 million sellers on its platform and sell to a billion buyers. Meesho was born on the premise that for online commerce to genuinely offer value, local retailers had to go online. Unorganized retail accounts for 90% of India’s spends. But when Aatrey and his co-founder Sanjeev Bamwal discovered that the sellers were not coming online because the buyers were not all shopping online. The pandemic has enabled Meesho to bring a lot more local businesses online as it was a matter of their survival. Challenging Amazon and Flipkart In the early days, Meesho’s sales were driven by 15 million women resellers, who bought products from the platform and sold it through WhatsApp and Facebook groups. From being a social commerce platform driven by re-sellers, it today has a share of nearly 30% in total daily online deliveries. Of the 9 million e-commerce orders processed daily, Meesho accounts for 2.7 million, while the two biggies account for 5 million. Clearly, Meesho is the challenger that nobody expected would catch up with Amazon and Flipkart. Another interesting statistic says that of the 70 million shoppers online, only 10 million are digital natives. It is a no-brainer then that India’s small businesses can provide the network effect to any online commerce platform that chooses to target this segment. Meesho waded into this space back in 2015, but found it tough to convince small entrepreneurs to come online because their customers were not online either. Language barriers and quality of internet speeds were only a few reasons why sellers were not online. Even when they brought sellers online, their buyers were still not online nor was Meesho’s app on too many smartphones. This changed after the pandemic but before that it was Meesho’s army of 15 million women resellers that drove its gross merchandise value up until 2020. Meesho is called a social commerce channel because it has been built by women resellers who found a vocation and economic independence by reselling goods purchased from the platform on WhatsApp and Facebook groups. Between 2017 and 2020, 100% sales were happening through resellers. The share of these women resellers is now down to 20% as consumers have now started downloading the app. Meesho’s monthly average users stand at 120 million and 35 million users transact on the app every month. On an average, 110 million Indian shoppers bought on Meesho last year. Not surprising that investors have also queued up to invest in the company. After raising seed capital of $300,000 from angel investors in March 2016, Meesho is valued at $4.9 bn after its latest round of capital raise of $570 mn in September 2021. Its list of marquee investors include Soft Bank Vision Fund 2, Prosus, Fidelity Management and Research, Yuri Milner’s DST Partners, Sequoia, SAIF Partners and Y Combinator among others. Sellers turn brand ambassadors <div type="image" title="Meesho_2 (1)" height="900" width="1200" msid="93702936" hostid="261"></div> Currently, there are six lakh sellers like Ansari on Meesho and the start-up wants to take this to one million. This goal may be work-in-progress, but every week employees join the Meesho Sabha, a meeting where examples like Ansari are discussed at length so that the team does not take its eyes off the goal post. Even though Meesho continues with its outreach programme to help sellers, existing sellers have now become brand ambassadors who are helping others get online. The platform offers peer-to-peer learning in several languages for those who want to get started. Says Dhiresh Bansal, chief financial officer of Meesho, “We still do our outreach programmes but a lot of people are now coming to our platform, as they need to diversify by targeting newer markets. Also the younger generation is more progressive and are taking their family businesses online.” After its success in the last two years, Meesho’s working hard to resolve several issues of sellers on its platform. Most of these sellers have seen a sharp rise in demand for their products after going online and the need for working capital requirement has gone up sharply. Lucknow-based Suman Agrawal used to sell women’s fashion clothing at her boutique but has shut it down after her brand Rudraksh saw sales boom on Meesho. She currently manages 22,000 orders a month. There are several sellers in India who cannot go online because they don’t have the requisite GST number. Aatrey has been a votary of their cause for a while. In June this year, the GST Council cleared a proposal that will no longer require sellers on e-commerce platforms to have a GST registration, if their turnover is less than ₹40 lakh and ₹20 lakh for goods and services respectively. This rule will come into effect from January 2023. Aatrey believes that this will be a game changer for millions of small sellers across India. While the company is not looking to raise capital immediately, it has plans to turn profitable and then hit the markets in a couple of years. The e-commerce player is looking at tightening its belt on costs now that it has attained scale. If it has to turn profitable in under 2 years then Meesho will have to cut back on cashburn and conserve capital. Aatrey says, “This festive season will give us an indication if there is any slowdown. We have not seen that so far, so it will be something that we will learn from.” <div type="image" title="Meesho_3 (1) (1)" height="900" width="1200" msid="93703012" hostid="261"></div> SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/sensex-slips-517-points-goes-below-the-60000-mark/articleshow/93701486.cms">Sensex slips 517 points, goes below the 60,000-mark</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/not-just-ev-makers-there-are-many-more-stocks-that-can-gain-from-ev-play/articleshow/93696654.cms">Not just EV makers, there are many more stocks that can gain from EV play</a>

Meet India’s Real Gully Boy: Vidit Aatrey of Meesho is taking the entrepreneurial dream deep inside Bharat

<ul><li>Home-grown platform Meesho is the latest start-up to join the unicorn club after raising $300 million from Softbank Vision Fund 2.</li><li>Founded in 2015, Meesho launched its first TVC in 2020 that aimed to celebrate financial independence of Indian women. It is now planning to go bullish on marketing with new campaigns and collaborations to expand its reseller user base.</li><li>Vidit Aatrey, Founder and CEO, Meesho walks us through the company’s journey from scratch, marketing goals for the year and shares his vision.</li></ul>It was in 2015 that Vidit Aatrey, Founder and CEO of Meesho decided to quit InMobi and start his own business. He and his partner Sanjeev Barnwal, Founder and CTO of Meesho came up with an idea to build a platform to help micro and small businesses shift online and leverage the power of digital technologies. So, as social commerce was struggling to make inroads in India, Meesho led the way and revolutionized the industry. “Social commerce was already a popular concept at that time but the challenges such as limited access to supply, lack of logistics/ payment options, customer friendly policies etc, were also on the rise,” shared Aatrey. Months went into experimenting with the idea, researching the market and getting the logistics right. They juggled between ideas until they perfected the core business proposition. Cut to today, Meesho has just raised $300 million in a new round of funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 on April 02. The startup has already joined the unicorn club. As per media reports, the new Series E round gives the five-year-old Bangalore-based company a valuation of $2.1 billion, up from about $600 million-$700 million in the 2019 Series D investment. The social commerce platform claims to have over 13 million entrepreneurs, a majority of whom are women. It has helped them start their own online businesses with zero investment, bringing the benefits of e-commerce to over 45 million customers across the country. Sharing why Aatrey started Meesho, he said, “‘Meesho’ stands for ‘meri shop’ or apni dukaan. Almost 9 out of every 10 individuals in India have a dream of starting his/her small business. Given the increasing number of self-employed, small business owners, gig workers in India it is no surprise that Indians have an enterprising mind. However, starting a business requires a lot of capital. India is not such a rich country. Most people do not have access to capital. These people who never had the opportunity to start a store came onto our platform and became entrepreneurs for the first time. One can come here, start his/her shop on WhatsApp, access anything from our supplier marketplace, and as per consumer orders, purchase is made from the marketplace.” Meesho primarily connects sellers with customers through social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook. It supervises logistics, online payment and provides real-time updates. Till date, the company has delivered orders from 100K+ registered suppliers to over 26,000 pin codes in more than 4,800 cities, helping generate over Rs 500 crore in income for entrepreneurs and serving customers in more than 4,500 Tier 2+ cities -- bringing e-commerce to Bharat. As per a recent report by Deloitte, India’s e-commerce is expected to grow from $24 billion in 2017 to $84 billion in 2021. Considering that India has about 60 million micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) currently, Meesho is just getting started. Aatrey said, “We have ~9M women entrepreneurs and India is roughly going to have more than 250M women who will be online by 2025. Given this understanding, we are just scratching the surfaces of enabling women to start their own business. With the growth that we have seen over the last year, we want to bring our value proposition to many aspiring women, and we see a lot of value in further communicating our value proposition. That said, we will consistently be communicating how Meesho can empower and enable women entrepreneurs in starting their home businesses.” According to Aatrey, the social reselling market in India is estimated to be $6-7 billion (GMV) in size as of 2020. By 2025, the social commerce is expected to be ~$70B and total ecommerce to be $200 Bn as the number of online shoppers, especially from tier II cities and beyond, continues to rise. After the pandemic, Meesho has also seen an increased adoption rate in Bharat. “Overall, more than 70% of our orders come from tier II+ towns. We have seen very good adoption in tier II+ towns during the pandemic: we have served 2000+ new tier 2+ towns since June and our order share from these towns has also increased from 67% earlier to 72% between July and December 2020,” said he. Aatrey believes that the future of online shopping is social commerce and more and more retail outlets have started exploring this medium after the pandemic. “I believe evolving technology is a wakeup call for everyone in business. It is imperative for all to realize the huge potential that digital has and ways to leverage it. The lockdown period came as a lesson for many of us. Many retailers in India resorted to selling products over WhatsApp and that shows how the retail market is also changing and moving towards digital. In fact, according to a retail website, today 85% of sellers using social commerce are small, offline retailers giving sharp competition to large organized sellers on e-commerce platforms. As per Bain Analysis, India has the highest number of internet users (572 million) globally, with substantial room for growth. So, the retail market has enough potential to leverage social commerce and bloom,” elaborated Aatrey. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Carving a niche beyond social commerce" text="Carving a niche beyond social commerce">Carving a niche beyond social commerce</cmsannotation> Since a majority of its sellers and buyers are women, Meesho’s communication also centers around women empowerment. Its mission is to help women achieve financial independence. Its first TVC, conceptualised by DDB Mudra, focused on an unstated need of a woman, which is to claim what she rightfully deserves – her own identity. The film celebrated the unstoppable spirit of women who overcome all social and economic barriers with the line that captures the sentiment of 'Not just a homemaker, a Meesho Entrepreneur.' <div type="Youtube" id="Y0nSzxtiShA" title="Many Names, One Identity #MyStoreMyStory" thumbUrl="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Y0nSzxtiShA/mqdefault.jpg"></div> Telling us more about the company's marketing proposition, Aatrey said, “We have more than 9 million resellers on our platform spread across 100 cities out of which 80% of them being women from smaller towns and cities. Social and cultural factors for years have kept this section of the society away from employment. Our strategy has always been to empower more and more people to fulfil their dream of becoming an entrepreneur, especially women, who due to social obligations sacrifice their dreams and fall behind in terms of financial independence. We wish to give them all a sense of self and accomplishment through our platform. Social media is our backbone and these entrepreneurs, our pillars of strength.” Meesho is also fighting against e-commerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart, who are ploughing billions of dollars and have been around for a while. Meesho’s rivals have on-boarded Bollywood celebrities and have a huge media presence. “In the era of Amazon and Flipkart, we at Meesho are trying to build trust through social commerce. Our strategy has always been to empower more and more people to fulfil their dream. Our communication will remain around our USP- to help build entrepreneurs with zero capital. We will also find more channels this year to penetrate our value proposition further,” said Aatrey. Vision After the recent funding round, Meesho is aiming to build a single ecosystem that will enable all small businesses to grow faster. “With the new round of funding, we are now focused on expanding our vision — from helping aspiring women entrepreneurs to creating Meesho as a single ecosystem that will enable all small businesses in India to succeed online. In the last one year, we have seen tremendous growth across small businesses and entrepreneurs seeking to move their businesses online. And with our new vision we will enable 100 million small businesses to start, succeed and lead their operations online with Meesho as their partner in their journey,” said Aatrey. The introduction of smartphones and penetration of the internet and WhatsApp in particular has made the market size for social commerce grow larger, which is estimated to reach $70B USD in 2025. Meesho aims to leverage this demand and go bullish on marketing with new campaigns and collaborations with different partners to accelerate its user base of resellers on the platform. “2021 has come with a new set of possibilities, opportunities, and challenges to tackle. We, at Meesho, are committed to our goal of letting anyone start a digital business with zero capital. Major focus area would be to enable increased adoption of Meesho’s platform across multiple categories which would be possible only when we are able to structurally reduce our prices for our customers. We also plan to leverage the digital ecosystem and unravel more benefits that it can offer for the betterment of our entrepreneurs and Meeho’s growth. We aim at surpassing all our achievements and recognitions from previous years and reach newer milestones. We are also looking at transforming the Meesho app for better experience for our entrepreneurs. With new built in features, we hope to enhance the look and feel of the app. ‘Meeshoites’ are looking at the year with great hope, plans and execution methods,” shared Aatrey.

Meesho's marketing strategy has been to empower women who lack financial independence, says CEO Vidit Aatrey

<ul><li><keyword id="5890319" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Social-E-commerce">Social e-commerce</keyword> startup <keyword id="3480589" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Meesho">Meesho</keyword> has raised $125 million from Naspers. </li><li>The startup was in the news for being Facebook’s first direct investment in India. </li><li>Meesho has over 2 million ‘social sellers’ across 700 towns in India.</li></ul>Meesho, the online marketplace raised $125 million funding led by Naspers. The round also saw participation from Facebook and existing investors SAIF, Sequoia, Shunwei Capital, RPS and Venture Highway and former Vodafone Group CEO Arun Sarin. Meesho is a marketplace for resellers, which connects them with customers via social media channels like WhatsApp and Facebook. “Our social sellers are small retailers, women, students and retired citizens, with 70% being homemakers who have found financial freedom and a business identity without having to step outside their homes,” said Vidit Aatrey, Meesho Co-Founder and CEO. One of the investors of this social e-commerce startup is Facebook. It’s the first time that the global giant picked up equity in an Indian startup. “With this investment in Meesho, we want to fuel a business model that can result in rapid job creation and the rise of a female entrepreneurial class in India," <keyword id="736869" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Facebook-India">Facebook India</keyword> head Ajit Mohan had then said in an <a href="https://www.livemint.com/companies/start-ups/facebook-invests-in-bengaluru-based-meesho-1560427873327.html">interview</a>. Meesho has over two million ‘social sellers’ across 700 towns in India along with a distribution channel of 15,000 suppliers in traditional manufacturing hubs. Its focus is largely on apparel, home, wellness and electronics items. The startup intends to create 20 million entrepreneurs by 2020. With the latest investment, Meesho wants to grow its community of women entrepreneurs and also reach out to remote customers of India. The startup was also a part of the global accelerator programme Y-Combinator. It had earlier raised a funding of $65 million from Sequoia India, DST Partners and Shunwei Capital.

Facebook-backed Indian startup Meesho raises $125 million from Naspers

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Indian startup finance ecosystem still going strong, report shows over 50% growth in VC funding over last year

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First 7 months of FY25 see significant surge in VC funding to India's startups: GlobalData

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