Facebook has agreed to invest INR 435.7 billion (approximately USD 5.7 billion) into India’s Jio Platforms, the holding company of mobile operator Reliance Jio Infocomm. This investment gives Jio Platforms an enterprise value of INR 4.6 trillion (approximately USD 66 billion). Facebook’s investment will translate into a 9.99 percent equity stake in Jio Platforms on a fully diluted basis.
Jio Platforms, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, brings together Jio’s digital apps, digital ecosystems and connectivity platform under one umbrella. Reliance Jio Infocomm, the Indian mobile operator with over 388 million customers, will continue to be a subsidiary of Jio Platforms.
Reliance says the partnership between Facebook and Jio 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”. This partnership will focus on developing services for India’s 60 million micro, small and medium businesses, 120 million farmers, 30 million small merchants and millions of small and medium enterprises in the informal sector.
Concurrent with the investment, Jio Platforms, Reliance Retail and WhatsApp have also entered into a commercial partnership agreement. The deal aims to 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 called ‘JioMart’ is being built in partnership with millions of small merchants and kirana shops. The partners seek to enable customers to access the nearest kiranas that can provide products and services to their homes by transacting with JioMart using WhatsApp.
The transaction is subject to regulatory and other customary approvals.
