Meesho, a social commerce platform that helps resellers and emerging brands build businesses using social media, has raised $50 million in a Series C funding round. New investors in the round are Shunwei Capital, DST Partners and RPS Ventures. Existing investors- Sequoia India, SAIF Partners, Venture Highway and Y Combinator also invested in this round.

Founded by IIT-Delhi alumni Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal in 2015, Meesho’s social selling platform aims to create 20 million successful entrepreneurs by 2020. Meesho has created an alternate distribution channel by empowering  housewives, young mothers, aspiring entrepreneurs, students, teachers, etc to launch, build and promote their online businesses using WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media channels.

Meesho will use the fresh funds to build a stronger product, scale its technology team while expanding into more categories and scaling domestic & international supply base.

“We’ve witnessed 10x growth over the last 6 months and have made significant progress in improving the experience of our sellers and consumers,” said Aatrey. “With this new round of funding and the strong team we’ve built at Meesho, we are confident we will continue  to create value for our resellers and suppliers, and reach end consumers not served well by traditional e-commerce models.”

Social e-commerce is the next big thing in the e-commerce space of India. We strongly believe that Meesho’s social reselling model is highly suitable for the great number of new-to-Internet buyers. It’s our pleasure to work with the excellent team of Meesho on this exciting opportunity.

-Tuck ( Founding Partner and CEO of Shunwei Capital )

“Social commerce is finally enabling everyone – women and men across all age groups to become micro entrepreneurs. Women can now start their businesses online without any investment. Sequoia India is excited to lead the investment in Meesho, a company that in many ways has enabled tens of thousands of women to take control of their own destiny by starting their own businesses and earning an independent income “, said Mohit Bhatnagar, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital India Advisors.

“RPS is thrilled to partner with one of the most innovative and differentiated eCommerce platforms in India.  It has great investors and an amazing young entrepreneur at the helm. We are hoping to assist them with our accumulated experience in the sector to further grow their business in India and beyond.”

• Kabir Misra (Founder & Managing Partner, RPS Ventures)