Jio Platforms ltd. is getting another big investment. Reliance Industries has confirmed that investment firm Silver Lake will invest Rs 5,655.75 crore into Jio Platforms. This comes just after the investment by social media giant Facebook, which invested $5.7 billion, or Rs 43,574 crore deal, which gave Facebook as much as 9.99% stake in Reliance Jio. So, what exactly is Silver Lake? This is an American equity firm and invest heavily in technology companies. They say they have around $43 billion in combined assets under management and committed capital.
“I am delighted to welcome Silver Lake as a valued partner in continuing to grow and transform the Indian digital ecosystem for the benefit of all Indians. Silver Lake has an outstanding record of being a valuable partner for leading technology companies globally. Silver Lake is one of the most respected voices in technology and finance. We are excited to leverage insights from their global technology relationships for the Indian Digital Society’s transformation,” says Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries Ltd. The investment by Silver Lake, soon after the investment by Facebook, firmly cements Reliance Jio’s and indeed its subsidiary Jio Platforms credentials as a tech and platform company.
Reliance Jio says this investment by Silver Lake is further testament to the world-class digital platform that Jio has built, powered by leading technologies, such as Broadband connectivity, Smart Devices, Cloud and Edge Computing, Big Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Augmented and Mixed Reality and Blockchain. This investment in Jio Platforms follows Silver Lake’s investments in other tech companies, including Airbnb, Alibaba, Ant Financial, Alphabet’s Verily and Waymo units, Dell Technologies and Twitter, to name a few.
“Jio Platforms is one of the world’s most remarkable companies, led by an incredibly strong and entrepreneurial management team who are driving and actualizing a courageous vision. They have brought extraordinary engineering capabilities to bear on bringing the power of low-cost digital services to a mass consumer and small businesses population. The market potential they are addressing is enormous, and we are honored and pleased to have been invited to partner with Mukesh Ambani and the team at Reliance and Jio to help further the Jio mission,” says Egon Durban, Silver Lake Co-CEO and Managing Partner
Silver Lake was launched in 1999 with the focus on investment in technology companies. You may probably not know this, but it was in May 2011 that Silver Lake led Skype’s owners to conclude a deal that saw tech giant Microsoft buy the now-incredibly-popular video calling app for $8.5 billion.
Silver Lake’s first foray into India was in 2013 when they bought a minority stake in the Bangalore-based Ekta Software company, which builds software for commodity trading.
Just last month, Silver Lake and Sixth Street Partners announced a $1 billion investment in Airbnb. They also helped Expedia raise around $3.2 billion of new capital. Earlier, Silver Lake announced a partnership with social media company Twitter and Elliott Management which saw the investment firm make a $1 billion investment in Twitter.
Earlier this year, Waymo, a part of Alphabet Inc which also owns Google, announced the first external round of investment which was led by Silver Lake, along with Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and Mubadala Investment Company. This helped Waymo raise $2.25 billion.
This investment will give Jio Platforms a solid foundation to build on, towards what Reliance Jio says is a Digital India vision for 1.3 billion people and businesses across the country, including small businesses, micro-businesses and farmers.
Comments
0 comment