Reliance Jio on Sunday announced that it has raised INR 6,598 crore from equity investment firm General Atlantic. The fresh investment values Jio platforms at Rs 4.91 lakh crore on equity basis and Rs 5.16 lakh crore on enterprise basis.
The latest round marks Jio’s fourth fundraising deal during the last four weeks. Coincidentally, American tech investors funded all these four rounds. This includes social media giant Facebook, Silver Lake, Vista Equity partners and now General Atlantic.
Please see the screenshot below to know more about financial details of these deals.
Following these four major fundraising rounds, the Reliance Industries owned telecommunication firm has mopped up INR 67,194 Cr during the last four week. With 9.9% stake, Facebook has also become the largest minority stake holder in the company.
Commenting on General Atlantic’s fundraising round, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman & MD RIL said, “General Atlantic shares our vision of digital society for India and strongly believes in transformative power of digitizing of enriching the lives 1.3 Bn Indians. We are excited to leverage General Atlantic’s proven global expertise and strategic insights across 40 years of technology investing for the benefit of Jio.”
These back to back deals clearly reflect that international investors are extremely bullish on Jio’s future. Among these four deals, Facebook’s investment accounts for a major significance as it gives a major push to Whatsapp’s quest to enter India’s payment market.
Immediately after Facebook’s investment, JioMart (e-commerce arm of Reliance Jio) started taking orders through Whatsapp. Facebook will also be hoping that its stake in India’s largest telecom company will soon pave the way for regulatory approval for Whatsapp to roll out its UPI payment service.
Mukesh Ambani’s decision to open Reliance Jio for overseas investors has come at a time when his flagship company’s core business is finding itself on shaky ground; profit and revenue from petrochemical and oil business are facing continuous pressure owing to crash in global oil prices.
Interestingly, Ambani has also decided to go for big capital hunting with Reliance industries recently announcing that it will soon launch a right issue of $7 Bn or INR 53, 215 crore.