As Meesho plans for IPO, here's a look at its financials in FY24

Meesho IPO: IPO-bound Meesho, which is backed by Softbank, narrowed its losses (excluding ESOPs cost) to ₹53 crore in the financial year 2023-24. In the previous fiscal year, the net loss was ₹1,569 crore.

Revenue from operations advanced 33% to ₹7,615 crore in FY24, compared to ₹5,735 crore in FY23, due to an increase in unique annual transacting users and higher order frequency from existing customers.

In its annual report, the company claimed to be the first horizontal Indian e-commerce firm to achieve profitability in fiscal 2024 and the first one to generate positive free cash flow of ₹197 crore for the full year.

"With ~187 million unique Annual Transacting Users (ATUs), approximately 13% of India has made a purchase through our platform. Total orders placed grew to 1.3 billion as of Dec’24, reflecting the increasing frequency and diversity of purchases, with more people turning to Meesho for a wide range of their daily needs. This trend has driven impressive growth across categories like Home & Kitchen, Beauty & Personal Care, and Baby Essentials," the report said.

Vidit Aatrey, chief executive officer (CEO) and founder of Meesho, said that metrics like PAT or EBITDA do provide some indicative reference to cash flows, but they ignore key components of free cash flow, such as working capital and capital expenditure.

He added, "Shareholders, especially in retail businesses, be it offline retail or inventory-based e-commerce, have seen dilution in value from both the components over years. Having witnessed this, we focus on Long Term Free Cash Flow (FCF) per share as the north-star metric of our business."

The budget e-commerce platform reported a 31% year-on-year increase in orders to 134.2 crore in FY24. In the first nine months of FY25, it recorded 133.3 crore orders.

Meesho IPO: E-com platform picks bankers for $1 billion issue

The report said that Meesho is looking to raise $1 billion from the initial share sale, and the bankers have pitched a valuation of $10 billion.