Indian e-commerce firm Meesho aims for $5.6 billion valuation in IPO

Nov 27 (Reuters) - Indian e-commerce platform Meesho MEES.NS is seeking a valuation of up to 501 billion rupees ($5.6 billion) through its IPO next week, as it looks to boost its reach in a market dominated by Amazon AMZN.O and Walmart-owned Flipkart WMT.N.

The share offering comes on the heels of IPOs by technology-driven companies like Groww BILO.NS, Lenskart LENS.NS and PhysicsWallah PHYS.NS in India's booming IPO market.

The domestic IPO market is poised to break last year's record of $20.5 billion, with as much as $8 billion in offerings anticipated in the final quarter of 2025.

Meesho, a platform popular in smaller cities with customers seeking value, is also likely cashing in on recent cuts to India's consumption and income taxes aimed at spurring domestic demand.

The SoftBank-backed 9984.T company has set a price band of 105-111 rupees per share ($1.18-$1.24) for the three-day share sale which begins December 3, a filing showed late on Thursday.

Anchor investors can bid a day earlier, on December 2. Meesho shares are expected to start trading on India's main stock exchanges on December 10, its prospectus showed.

The IPO aims to raise about 54 billion rupees ($604 million) at the top end of the price range, according to Reuters calculations.

Existing shareholders in the Bengaluru-based firm, including Elevation Capital and Peak XV Partners, are selling a total of 105.5 million shares, fewer than the 175.7 million they had earlier planned to sell. SoftBank is not selling shares in the IPO.

The company is also issuing new shares worth 42.5 billion rupees. It will use proceeds from the IPO to invest in cloud infrastructure, its tech unit, and for other expenses.

($1 = 89.3470 Indian rupees)