Reliance Industries, Jio Platforms and Facebook have announced the signing of binding agreements for an investment of Rs 43,574 crore by Facebook into Jio Platforms.
The investment by Facebook values Jio Platforms at Rs 4.62 lakh crore pre-money enterprise value (USD 65.95 billion, assuming a conversion rate of Rs 70 to a US Dollar).
Facebook’s investment will translate into 9.99 percent equity stake in Jio Platforms on a fully diluted basis.
This is the largest investment for a minority stake by a technology company anywhere in the world and the largest FDI in the technology sector in India.
Concurrent with the investment, Jio Platforms, Reliance Retail and WhatsApp have also entered into a commercial partnership agreement to further accelerate Reliance Retail’s new commerce
business on the JioMart platform using WhatsApp and to support small businesses on WhatsApp.
Reliance Retail’s new commerce platform, JioMart, is being built in partnership with millions of small merchants and kirana shops to empower them to better serve the needs of Indian consumers.
The companies will work closely to ensure that consumers are able to access the nearest kiranas who can provide products and services to their homes by transacting seamlessly with JioMart
using WhatsApp.
Jio Platforms is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries, is a next-generation technology company building Digital Society for India by bringing together Jio’s digital apps, digital ecosystems and India’s high-speed connectivity platform under one umbrella. Reliance Jio Infocomm which provides connectivity platform to over 388 million subscribers, will continue to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jio Platforms.
