Confirming the deal struck earlier this year, India’s Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has said that its subsidiary Jio Platforms has now received a substantial amount of money from Google.
According to Indian media reports, the amount, a whopping Rs 33,737 crore (the rough equivalent of $4.55 billion) from Google not only equates to a 7.73 percent stake in Jio Platforms but is also Google’s biggest-ever investment in an Indian company.
Jio Platforms houses the digital assets of RIL, including broadband connectivity, cloud and edge computing, big data analytics and artificial intelligence.
The transaction is news, not just because of its size but because the Competition Commission of India has recently approved Google's investments into Jio Platforms and the planned partnership to develop affordable 4G and 5G Android-based smartphones.
Not too surprisingly, the short-term market reaction has been positive, with a modest boost to Reliance Industries stock, which rose slightly in trading on Tuesday.
This news is likely to be especially satisfying for Jio Platforms as it can now boast that it has received all the funds from the 13 investors it has recently attracted. Together, they have put some $20.5 billion into the company – a shared stake of just under 33 percent.
As we have already reported, among other major investors in Jio Platforms is Facebook, which has taken a stake of 9.9 percent. This is the highest stake of all the investors, which include Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, KKR, Mubadala, ADIA, TPG, L Catterton, Public Investment Fund, Intel Capital and Qualcomm Ventures as well, of course, as Google.
