Benzinga | Apr 5, 2021 07:04AM EDT

SoftBank-Backed Indian Social Commerce Start-up Raises $300M Funding At $2.1B Valuation: Report

* Indian social commerce start-up Meesho Inc has raked $300 million in a fresh funding round at a $2.1 billion valuation led by Japanese firm SoftBank Group Corp (OTC: SFTBF) (OTC: SFTBY)'s Vision Fund 2, Bloomberg reports.

* Other investors included Prosus Ventures, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB), Shunwei Capital, Venture Highway, and Knollwood Investment.

* The latest funding had nearly tripled the former $700 million valuations in 2019 when it raised $125 million in funding involving Sequoia, Shunwei, Elevation Capital, Venture Highway, RPS, Facebook, and former Vodafone Group PLC (NASDAQ: VOD) CEO Arun Sarin.

* Meesho, founded in 2015 by IITians Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal aims to simplify e-commerce for the booming small businesses in India. The platform connects manufacturers with resellers for product sales via social media platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook. It also offers payment and logistic services to resellers and has over 45 million customers.

* Price action: SFTBY shares closed higher by 1.22% at $43.08 on Thursday.