Reliance Industries has announced that Silver Lake will make another investment, this time in Reliance Retail Ventures Limited. The investment that Silver Lake is making in RRVL is Rs 7,500 crores, which will translate into a 1.75% equity stake in RRVL on a fully diluted basis. This comes after Silver Lake invested in Reliance Jio Platforms over the summer, with the total investments pegged at $1.35 billion, for which it now has a 2.08 percent stake in Jio?s technology project. So, what exactly is Silver Lake? This is an American equity firm and invest heavily in technology companies. They say they have more than $60 billion in combined assets under management and committed capital. Reliance Retail is India’s largest retail business with more than 12,000 stores nationwide registering more than 640 million footfalls.
Silver Lake was launched in 1999 and is based in Silicon Valley, New York, London and Hong Kong, with focus on investment in technology companies among other verticals. You may probably not remember 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.
In April, 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.
“I am delighted to extend our relationship with Silver Lake to our transformational efforts of building an inclusive partnership with millions of small merchants while providing value to Indian consumers across the country in the Indian retail sector. We believe technology will be key to bringing the much-needed transformation in this sector so that various constituents of the retail ecosystem can collaborate to build inclusive growth platforms. Silver Lake will be an invaluable partner in implementing our vision for Indian Retail,” says Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries.
“We are pleased to deepen our relationship with Reliance with this investment. Mukesh Ambani and his team at Reliance have created an outstanding world leader in retail and technology through their courageous vision, commitment to societal benefits, innovation excellence and relentless execution. The success of JioMart in such a short time span, especially while India, along with the rest of the world, battles the COVID-19 pandemic, is truly unprecedented, and the most exciting growth phase has just begun. Reliance’s New Commerce strategy could become the disruptor of this decade. We are thrilled to have been invited to partner with Reliance in their mission for Indian Retail,” says Egon Durban, Co-CEO and Managing Partner of Silver Lake.
Reliance Retail is India’s largest retail business with more than 12,000 stores nationwide registering more than 640 million footfalls. Reliance Retail says their focus is on a transformational digitalization of small and unorganised merchants and is committed to expanding the network to over 20-million merchants, helping them benefit from the use of technology tools and efficient supply chain infrastructure.
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