Meesho hits a rough patch with down round concerns

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Editor's note: At a company-wide town hall a few months ago, disappointment awaited the employees of Meesho. Founder and CEO Vidit Aatrey broke the news suddenly. A big, promising investor had pulled out of the e-commerce startup’s latest funding round. Aatrey didn’t reveal who the investor was, just that it had unexpectedly backed out. As a result, there were going to be financial changes—budgets cut and targets revised—even as Meesho continued to look for money elsewhere.  For more than nine months now, the company has been on the road to raise money. Late last year, the idea was to raise a billion dollars at a valuation of $10 billion. This was an ambitious target, to say the least, given that Meesho had already announced two rounds in 2021: $300 million in April, valuing it at $2.1 billion$570 million in September, valuing it at $4.9 billion In the end, the startup didn’t find many takers at $10 billion. Another wave of the pandemic early this year, followed by the Russia-Ukraine war and global inflation fears, only made things worse in terms of investor …