New Delhi: E-commerce platform Meesho’s Rs 5,421-crore Initial Public Offering (IPO) was oversubscribed 79.02 times as of 5.30 pm Friday, its final bidding day.
Investors placed bids for 221 crore shares against the 27.79 crore shares on offer, while the issue continued to draw strong interest in the grey market. Meesho’s public offering opened on 3 December and ran through 5 December.
By the end of third day of the bidding, Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs) had subscribed 120.18 times, Non-Institutional Investors (NIIS) 38.16 times and Retail Individual Investors (RIIs) 19.08 times.
Meesho’s grey market premium (GMP) is currently at about 42 percent, suggesting that if general market circumstances continue to be favourable, a solid listing is anticipated. The stock is expected to float on the BSE and NSE on Wednesday, 10 December.
Meesho’s listing is the latest in a long series of IPOs from technology-driven companies such as Groww, Lenskart, and PhysicsWallah, which are capitalising on a thriving primary market.
More than 300 IPOs have raised $19.26 billion in India this year, paving the way for a record year for IPO fundraising in 2025, according to London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) data.
On Day 1, Meesho’s IPO received bids for 42.91 crore shares against the 27.79 crore shares on offer, exchange data showed.
On Wednesday, retail investors bid for 17.36 crores shares, more than three times the 5.1 crore shares reserved for them.
Meesho has set a price band of Rs 105-111 a share. The offer is a mix of a fresh issue and an offer for sale: the company is seeking to raise about Rs 4,250 crore through new shares while existing investors are putting up roughly Rs 1,171 crore for sale, taking the total to about Rs 5,421 crore.
The minimum application at the upper band works out to 135 shares. Retail investors, therefore, need roughly Rs 14,985 to apply at the top of the band. Lead managers and the timetable for allotment and listing are detailed in the company’s prospectus and investor materials.
A venture for small businesses
Meesho started in late 2015 as a small social commerce experiment in Bengaluru. It was founded by two IIT graduates, Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal, who set out to help small merchants and individual resellers sell catalogues over apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram.
The platform pitched itself as a low-cost distribution channel for manufacturers and wholesalers, and a way for homemakers and micro-entrepreneurs to start online shops without inventory outlays.
Over the past five years, the company has scaled quickly. Meesho’s investor relations and prospectus filings show rapid topline growth as the business matured and unit economics improved.
Meesho’s revenue increased from Rs 5,735 crore in FY23 to Rs 9,390 crore in FY25. However, net losses increased to Rs 3,942 crore due to growing investments. The company is positioned as a high-growth e-commerce player that prioritises volume over profitability.
The company’s annual reporting and the abridged prospectus filed with banks and SEBI provide the formal numbers used by investors.
Meesho operates primarily as a marketplace and reseller enablement platform. Revenue streams include marketplace fees, advertising and value-added services to sellers and resellers.
The company has invested heavily in logistics, payments and fraud prevention to support a massively dispersed network of sellers and resellers across smaller towns and cities.
Before Meesho, Aatrey and Barnwal founded another hyperlocal on-demand fashion marketplace, which they called the “Swiggy for fashion”.
The startup failed, but building on the same idea, the two former IITians developed a platform that helped small businesses reach a wide range of customers.
Meesho also proved to be a great aid to resellers, especially homemakers, who could sell product catalogues through their social media network. It allowed them to edit the listing price of products so that they could earn a commission from their sales.
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Funding history and investors
Meesho’s rise was fuelled by several large private rounds.
The company crossed the billion-dollar mark in capital raised with a string of late-stage rounds: a $300 million Series E and then a $570 million Series F in 2021 that valued Meesho at about $4.9 billion.
Over multiple rounds, the platform has taken capital from global names such as Fidelity, B Capital, SoftBank’s Vision Fund, Prosus and later funds associated with Peak XV and Tiger Global. Ahead of the IPO, the company also secured anchor investments from institutional pools.
Series E and Series F are the last rounds of equity funding for a startup, generally used by established organisations to fuel large-scale expansion, prepare for an IPO, or make strategic acquisitions.
At this late stage, a company has shown significant growth and market validation, drawing large investors such as private equity firms and institutions.
Controversies and governance issues
Like many high-growth marketplaces, Meesho has faced a series of operational and legal headaches.
In 2024, police in Bengaluru and Surat arrested suspects linked to a scheme that exploited the returns and refund process; Meesho reported losses of about Rs 5-5.5 crore to that fraud and flagged broader abuse of returns processes. Meesho has since stepped up audits and fraud detection.
Separately, Meesho disclosed an arbitration dispute with Amazon Web Services (AWS).
AWS has claimed roughly Rs 127.45 crore for alleged unpaid cloud commitments; Meesho has disputed the invoices and filed a counterclaim of about Rs 86.49 crore, saying it suffered business disruption and migration costs.
The proceedings are described in Meesho’s draft prospectus and have been flagged as a material risk for investors.
The platform has also been under pressure from counterfeit listings and low-quality products. Meesho says it runs proactive programmes to detect and delist infringing and restricted listings and has reported the takedown of millions of suspect listings in recent months while simultaneously investing in “trust and safety” technology.
This is an updated version of the article with the last available figures
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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