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While Facebook is exploring ways to generate revenue with WhatsApp, the company is now turning to a startup that already has a track. The social media spokesman announced today that he has invested in the Meesho social business start-up during the company's first participation in an Indian start-up.
Neither Facebook nor Meesho, which before that announcement had raised approximately $ 65 million from several investors, including DST Partners, RPS Ventures and Shunwei Capital, did not share the financial terms of the deal. A source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that the size of the capital was "very important".
Meesho, a former student of Y Combinator, is an online social commerce that connects sellers to customers on social media platforms such as WhatsApp. The four-year-old start-up claims to have a network of more than 2 million resellers, who mainly deal with clothing and electronic items.
These resellers are mostly homemakers, most of whom have bought a smartphone for the first time in recent years. Meesho has most of its customers in smaller cities, commonly known as India 2, where most users are still not offline. These are two things that drew Facebook to Meesho, TechCrunch told Ajit Mohan, vice president and general manager of Facebook India.
"A platform that targets India 2 and has such a large user base – while the majority of Internet users in India are mostly men – is a remarkable achievement," he said. declared. According to several estimates, men account for more than 80% of Internet users in India.
Meesho claims to help thousands of dealers earn more than 25,000 rupees ($ 360) a month. In an interview with TechCrunch last year, Vidit Aatrey, co-founder and CEO of Meesho, said the startup, which currently operates in India, planned to enter international markets.
Even though WhatsApp is a crucial game for Meesho, the startup will continue to work with other social media platforms, said Mohan, of Facebook. Last year, Facebook launched its Marketplace, which operates in the same space as Meesho. Mohan said that the company did not see in Meesho a way to expand its own family of services.
On the contrary, Facebook is now open to exploring investments in other startups that are building unique solutions for the Indian market. "Wherever we think there are opportunities beyond the work we do today, we are willing to explore other investment agreements," he said. declared. There is no particular category that Facebook necessarily looks at, he added.
Even though Facebook has not attempted to make WhatsApp grow beyond a communications service, users in India, the largest service market, are finding more and more ways to incorporate WhatsApp. application of Facebook to their activities.
Google, Amazon and Twitter have also invested in Indian startups. While Twitter backed the social platform ShareChat, Google has invested in the application of Dunzo hyperlocal concierge.
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