Private equity firm General Atlantic has agreed to plough Rs 6,598.38 crore into Jio Platforms, the holding company of India’s largest telecom operator.
The US-based fund which manages $35 billion in assets globally will buy a 1.34 percent in Jio Platforms, valuing Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Industries’ subsidiary at an equity value of Rs 4.91 lakh crore and an enterprise valuation of Rs 5.16 lakh crore, according to RIL’s exchange filing.
This will be the fourth investment in Jio Platforms—which includes Reliance Jio and a bouquet of varied digital offerings—in less than a month. In April, Facebook had pumped Rs 43,574 crore into Reliance Jio’s parent. That was followed by a Rs 5,656-crore investment by Silver Lake Partners and a Rs 11,367-crore stake purchase by Vista Equity Partners.
The overall fundraising after these four deals now stands at Rs 67,194.75 crore. “Jio Platforms has raised Rs 67,194.75 crore from leading technology investors including Facebook, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners and General Atlantic in less than four weeks,” RIL said in a statement.
Of late, General Atlantic has been vying for consumer technology and early-stage startups in India. This is vastly different from its approach towards the fast-growing tech sector not very long back, when the fund came close to backing the likes of Flipkart (acquired by Walmart) in its early days and Zomato a few years back, but eventually refrained from biting the bullet.
Read: General Atlantic wants to pick early bets in India as the fund stays bullish on technology sector
Earlier this month, General Atlantic told ET that it will begin evaluating startups early on and invest anywhere between $25 million and $500 million in a company. The firm has been one among the rare growth-stage funds to take several bets on fledgling companies in India’s tech space, while most of its peers have steered clear of these high-burn and steeply valued companies.
Over the past year or so, GA as it is commonly known as, has backed edtech major Byju’s, online learning platform Unacademy, real estate portal NoBroker, and will explore more such opportunities in this segment as consolidation kicks in and valuations soften
Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, said: “I am thrilled to welcome General Atlantic, a marquee global investor, as a valued partner. I have known General Atlantic for several decades and greatly admired it for its belief in India’s huge growth potential…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.”
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