Meesho’s in-house logistics arm, Valmo, saw its share of orders drop from over 60% to under 50% in the last quarter. Built to be Meesho's defining competitive advantage for a late 2025 IPO, its aggressive scale-up led to significant cost inefficiencies. This forces a rethink for Meesho’s plan to challenge 3PL giants like Delhivery directly on price.
How We Got Here
Launched in 2024, Valmo was designed as an asset-light, software-orchestration platform to cut shipping costs and reduce dependence on third-party logistics (3PLs). The ambition saw it quickly grow from handling 2% of Meesho’s shipments in FY23 to over 60% earlier this year, surpassing Delhivery’s volume share.
The Numbers
- Valmo stitches together small local players who already own assets like bikes and trucks, rather than Meesho investing in end-to-end infrastructure.
- Meesho CEO Vidit Aatrey recently told staff at a panchayat that he still wants to expand Valmo, noting its increased share compared to the previous year.
- Despite Aatrey's push, CFO Dhiresh Bansal stated in the Q4 FY26 earnings call that the objective is solely to minimise delivery costs, irrespective of provider.
- Valmo struggled to penetrate deeper into India’s hinterlands efficiently, hitting limits of its low-cost model as Meesho orders reached 5,000 per minute.
- Meesho ships nearly 2.7 billion orders annually in FY26, making it India’s largest e-commerce shipper by volume.
What Happens Next
🇮🇳 Why This Matters for India
For lakhs of small sellers in places like Nashik, Madurai, and Gorakhpur, Meesho's approach to logistics directly determines their reach and margin on every single micro-order.
The Take
The underlying tension here is less about Valmo's raw scalability and more about Meesho's internal conflict between its CEO's vision for an in-house competitive edge and its CFO's relentless focus on pure unit economics. Expect Meesho to lean harder on established 3PLs for tough last-mile routes, effectively acknowledging the limits of its "asset-light" advantage for deeper market penetration.
Source:
The Ken ↗