E-commerce firm Meesho eyes to become profitable in 1-2 years: Exec

Internet e-commerce company Meesho has chalked out aggressive strategies to become profitable in the next 1-2 years, its Chief Experience Officer (growth) Megha Agarwal said on Tuesday.

The target comes at a time when funding for start-ups is in the slow lane. 

“It’s very important for any company to be profitable. It’s become even more important in an environment like this where we have been reading about funding etc… and it’s here to stay, that’s the truth that we are all facing,” said Agarwal.

She, however, pointed out that Meesho had been unit economics-positive for nearly two years. “Which means that we do not burn any money in any order. The only thing that remains is fixed cost. And now we want to get into a situation where we are taking care of the fixed cost as well.”

With an eye on profitability, Meesho downsized its grocery vertical, Meesho SuperStore, earlier in the year, resulting in 150 employees being laid off.

Agarwal said Meesho was trying to figure out the right business model to crack grocery. “We tried one business model and now we are pivoting to a more tech-first business model,” explained Agarwal.

Once profitable, Meesho may look to go public. “IPO is an eventuality,” Agarwal said.

Incidentally, Meesho’s last round of funding at $570 million was in September 2021, which more than doubled its valuation to $4.9 billion. It was led by Fidelity Management & Research Company and B Capital Group. Existing investors Prosus Ventures, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and Facebook also participated in the round, which saw new investors such as Footpath Ventures, Trifecta Capital, and Good Capital.

Since March 2021, the transacting user base on the platform has grown by 5.5 times. Meesho claims to have recorded over 100 million transacting users between March 2021 and April 2022. And Agarwal said the mission was to achieve a goal of 150 million transacting users by December 2022.

Meesho’s gross merchandise value (GMV) has risen 3 times since March 2021, the company said.

Ahead of the upcoming Durga Puja, Meesho will host a Maha Indian Savings Sale and has on-boarded BCCI chief Sourav Ganguly as marketing campaign around the upcoming festival season.

In terms of user base, West Bengal has clocked growth of 411 per cent in the past year.