Fidelity Cuts Valuations For Meesho And Pine Labs In October 2023: Report

Updated on: 25 January 2024 5:21 pm

The report observed that the decline in deals was largely because of a lack of interest in investing in Indias start-ups ecosystem

Global PE/VC Investments Decline 11 Per Cent To $49.8 Billion In 2023: Report Photo: The report observed that the decline in deals was largely because of a lack of interest in investing in India's start-ups ecosystem

Fidelity, the US-based investment firm, has marked down the valuations of e-commerce platform Meesho and fintech firm Pine Labs as of October 31, 2023, Business Standard reported citing the firm’s regulatory filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Meesho's valuation has been revised down from over $5 billion to $4.1 billion, while Pine Labs is now valued at $3 billion, down from $4.7 billion as of August 31, 2023, according to a report by Moneycontrol.

In September 2021, Fidelity spearheaded a $570 million funding round for Meesho, joined by B Capital Group, a venture capital firm co-founded by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Luiz Saverin. Post the successful fundraise, the Bengluru-based Meesho's valuation surged, more than doubling to reach $4.9 billion in under five months.

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Prosus Ventures (formerly Naspers Ventures), SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and Facebook, existing investors, also contributed to this funding round.

The firm lowered the company's valuation by 9.7 per cent to $4.4 billion as of March 31 last year. Subsequently, it revised the valuation upwards to approximately $5.04 billion. This development aligns with the milestone moment when Meesho surpassed a gross merchandise value (GMV) of over $5 billion.

In December 2023, the company witnessed a 32 per cent year-over-year growth, outpacing Flipkart's 21 per cent and Amazon's 13 per cent user growth during the same period.

According to data.ai, Meesho recorded 14.5 crore app downloads in 2023 in India.

SoftBank-backed Meesho announced in December of last year that it had become the first e-commerce unicorn to post a consolidated profit after tax in the second quarter ending September 2023.

While the company did not disclose the specific amount of profit earned during the July-September period, it mentioned that in the first half of the current financial year, it reduced its losses to Rs 141 crore and increased its revenue by 37 percent on a year-over-year basis to Rs 3,521 crore.

On the other hand, B2B fintech Pine Labs saw its valuation decline to $3 billion as of October 31, 2023, down from $4.7 billion on August 31, 2023. The company had previously attained a valuation exceeding $5 billion in 2022 following a $150 million funding round led by Alpha Wave Global.