Meesho IPO set to deliver stellar gains for co-founders and early investors

Ecommerce company Meeshois set to launch its IPO next week, bringing massive gains for its co-founders and shareholders, as it makes India's first ecommerce public market debut.

The IPO price range is set between Rs 105 per share and Rs 111 per share, valuing the offering at Rs 5,421.05 crore, around $5.6 billion at the upper end of the range.

Meesho Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO Vidit Aatrey holds 11.1% stake in the company, which is currently valued at Rs 5,245 crore, marking a whooping 1,850x return since inception. Aatrey plans to offload a small portion of his holdings, acquired at an average price of Rs 0.06 a share, which is worth Rs 9.6 crore.

Co-founder and CTO Sanjeev Barnwal will also see his Rs 63.1 lakh stake, about 7.4% of the share capital, now worth Rs 3,504 crore, marking an impressive 5550x return.

Elevation Capital acquired its stake at a weighted average price of ₹3.04 per share, accumulating 24.45 million shares at an effective investment of about ₹74 crore. At the IPO’s upper price band of ₹111, Elevation’s holding is valued at approximately ₹2,709 crore, delivering a remarkable ~36× return on its early investment, making it the institutional shareholders that walked away with the highest-return in the cap table.

Peak XV Partners, which invested at a later stage compared to the earliest seed investors, acquired 17.38 million shares at roughly ₹4.29 per share. This implies an initial outlay of about ₹74.5 crore. At the upper band of ₹111, these shares are now worth nearly ₹1,930 crore, generating an impressive ~26× return.

Y Combinator's early bet in the company paid off, acquiring 7.20 million shares at just ₹1.02 per share, amounting to a total investment of only ₹7.34 crore. At the IPO’s upper price of ₹111, the value of this stake surges to nearly ₹799 crore. This represents a staggering ~109× return, putting YC among the highest-multiple winners in the company’s cap table.

Prosus and SoftBank, despite being Meesho’s largest institutional investors with stakes of 12.34% and 9.31%, respectively, will not sell any shares in the IPO.

The Bengaluru-based company plans to open its IPO next week on December 3, with bidding offer closing on Friday, December 5.