- $566 million in media and education.
- $194 million in retail.
- $1.2 billion in telecom and internet.
- $100 million in digital
- $391 million in chemical and energy space.
Above is not the potential of these markets, it’s the amount Reliance Industries has injected into these sectors from time to time.
No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team – Reid Hoffman.
2019 was the busiest year for Reliance Industries. During 2018-2019 RIL is said to acquire, invest a did joint venture deals in around 49 big and small companies. While some deals will be closed in the financial year 2020-21.
Pre demonetization era, RIL was working on markets like energy, petrochemicals, textiles, natural resources, retail, and telecom. Post demonetization, the conglomerate entered new ventures like eCommerce, mixed reality, big data, logistics, and deep technology.
In the past 3 years, RIL is said to invest worth $3 billion to boost product offerings of its subsidiaries and help its other verticals to be even more tech-friendly.
Having 50 years of legacy, RIL is now establishing various verticals that will keep a check on India’s market to look out for start-ups and businesses that might sync well with their business verticals.
RIL established Reliance Strategic Business Ventures Limited (RSBVL) which invested in NowFLoats Technologies, Asteria Aerospace to name a few.
Reliance’s GenNext ventures partnered with Microsoft aims to acquire a 15% stake in young start-ups. Reliance also plans to set-up INR 5,000 crore venture capital fund – Reliance Jio Digital India Start – to boost entrepreneurship in the country over a period of 5 years. Through this set-up, the company is said to boost markets like agriculture, education, health, and rural livelihood.
Let’s have a look at RIL’s various investments and acquisitions and then connect the dots that would peep into the conglomerate’s strategy to utilize the resources.
| Company Name | Amount Injected by RIL | RIL Stake | Year |
| C-Square | INR 22.04/- crores | 82% | March – 19 |
| EasyGov | INR 18/- crores | 76% | Feb – 19 |
| Embibe | INR 1293.6 crore | 72.69% | Apr – 19 |
| Fynd | INR 295/- crores | 87.60% | Aug – 19 |
| Grab | INR 107/- crores | 83% | March – 19 |
| Haptik | INR 700/- crores | 100% | March – 19 |
| Netradyne | INR 172/- crores | 37.4% | 2018-19 |
| Reverie | INR 190/- crores | 83% | Feb – 19 |
| Saavn | INR 10/- crores | 100% | Apr – 19 |
| Sankhyasutra | INR 16.2 crores | 83% | March – 19 |
| Tesseract | Undisclosed | 92% | May – 19 |
| Asteria Aerospace | INR 23 crore (more to fund) | 51.7% | Dec – 21 |
| NowFloats | INR 141.63/- crores | 85% | Dec – 19 |
| Hamley’s | INR 638/- crores | 100% | May – 19 |
| John Players | INR 150/- crores | 100% |
March – 19 |
And the list goes on and on. We are expecting a couple of more investments from RIL’s side this year as they have made clear about entering into the food and grocery market with JioMArt. Acquiring logistics start-up Grab and software company C-square is inclined towards the smooth flow of RIL’s JioMArt.
While Reverie, real-time delivery of online content in multiple Indian languages, EasyGov is a (SaaS) start-up providing citizens to search and apply for various government schemes and services from its platform.
SankhyaSutra virtually provides solutions to industrial issues eliminating needs to conduct costly physical experiments.
Tesseract is a deep-tech start-up and launched 3 hardware and 2 software products in MR, AR and VR spaces – Methane, Holoboard & Quark. Holoboard is said to be the first made-in-India AR headset that syncs with smartphones. Tesseract will continue to work independently but the team has developed Jio HoloBoard as a native mixed reality headset for JioFiber users. Reliance Jio wants to make headsets available for purchase in the market soon at extremely affordable prices.
In December last year, RSBVL took 85% stakes in Nowfloats Technologies for INR 141.63 crores with a proposal to make a further investment of INR 75 crores to achieve desired milestones. Investment is expected to be completed by December this year after which RSBVL will have 89% stakes in the start-up.
The spending spree from conglomerate indicates RIL’s aspiration to be among the top 20 companies globally. With India chasing to become $5 trillion economies by 2025, efforts of big companies not only support India’s vision to be a superpower but they are also providing a stage for innovative start-ups where they can catch rapid growth and scale-up RIL overall.
While alone acquisitions may not make much sense, collectively they contribute to research and development in RIL. They are an important bet considering Reliance Industries’ plans around strengthening its presence across verticals.
