According to Forbes, shares of Bengaluru-based e-commerce firm Meesho surged 95% following its listing last week, making it India’s best-performing IPO this year. The rally, which sent the stock to 216.34 rupees ($2.39) by Wednesday’s close, catapulted CEO and co-founder Vidit Aatrey into the billionaire ranks, valuing his 10% stake at about $1.1 billion. The company, which also counts SoftBank and Peak XV as investors, raised 54 billion rupees in an offering that was oversubscribed by a staggering 81 times. Founded in 2015 by IIT Delhi graduates Aatrey and Sanjeev Kumar, Meesho now has nearly 190 million users and 400,000 sellers. The company’s revenue climbed 26% to 99 billion rupees for the year ending March 2025, though its losses also widened significantly to 39 billion rupees.
The Zero-Commission Gamble
Here’s the thing that really sets Meesho apart in its brutal fight with Amazon and Flipkart: it charges sellers zero commission. That’s a massive deal in a market where every percentage point of margin is fought over. Instead, Meesho makes its money from logistics, advertising, and financial services on its platform. It’s a classic land-grab strategy—get everyone on your platform by removing the biggest barrier to entry, then monetize them through other services once they’re hooked. Basically, they’re betting that being the cheapest place for a small seller to operate will win them the market. And with 81 times oversubscription for their IPO, it seems a lot of investors are buying that bet, at least for now.
Profitability: The Elephant in the Room
But let’s talk about those losses. Widening from 3 billion to 39 billion rupees in a year? That’s not a minor detail. It tells you the cost of that aggressive growth. All that marketing and user acquisition they’re funding with the IPO money? It’s expensive. They’re spending heavily to pull users and sellers away from the entrenched giants. The big question is, when does the pivot to profitability happen? Can they successfully transition enough of their massive user base into higher-margin service revenue before investor patience for red ink runs out? The market cap is now nearly $11 billion, so expectations are sky-high. They’ve nailed growth. Now they have to prove the model actually makes money.
More Than Just an IPO: A Market Signal
This isn’t just a Meesho story. It’s a signal about the entire Indian tech and startup ecosystem. Over 300 IPOs raising 1.8 trillion rupees this year? That’s a record-shattering boom. Investor appetite for Indian consumer tech stories is seemingly insatiable. Meesho’s success, coming from its pivot to empower small sellers via WhatsApp and Facebook during the pandemic, has become the poster child. It shows global capital is deeply confident in India’s digital adoption and consumption story. But it also raises a caution flag. When everything is booming, it’s easy to overlook fundamentals like those ballooning losses. For every success, there will be companies that can’t make the leap from growth story to sustainable business. Meesho’s next chapter will be about writing that playbook.
