Earlier today, Reliance Jio Platforms raised an additional round of investment from Silver Lake and associated investors. Reliance Industries has confirmed that investment firm Silver Lake will invest a further Rs 4,546.80 crore in Jio Platforms, after it made an initial investment of Rs 5,655.75 crore last month. Silver Lake's added investment comes on the back of Abu Dhabi-based sovereign investors Mubadala Investment Company, which picked up a 1.85 percent stake in Jio Platforms for Rs 9,093.60 crore. With this round, Silver Lake's total investment in Jio Platforms comes to Rs 10,202.55 crore, for which it now has a 2.08 percent stake in Jio's technology project.
Silver Lake’s first investment in Jio Platforms came just after the headlining investment by social media giant Facebook, which invested $5.7 billion, or Rs 43,574 crore deal, which gave Facebook a 9.99 percent stake in Reliance Jio. So, what exactly is Silver Lake? This is an American equity firm and invest heavily in technology companies. They say they have around $43 billion in combined assets under management and committed capital.
Commenting on the additional investment, Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Ltd, said, “Silver Lake and its co-investors are valued partners as we continue to grow and transform the Indian digital ecosystem for the benefit of all Indians. We are pleased to have their confidence and support, as well as the benefit of their leadership in global technology investing and their valued network of relationships, as we drive the Indian Digital Society’s transformation. I would like to emphasise that Silver Lake’s additional investment in Jio Platforms, within a span of five weeks during the COVID-19 pandemic, is a strong endorsement of the intrinsic resilience of the Indian economy, which will surely grow bigger with comprehensive digital enablement.” The total investment by Silver Lake firmly cements Reliance Jio’s and indeed its subsidiary Jio Platforms credentials as a tech and platform company.
Egon Durban, co-CEO and managing partner of Silver Lake, also said about the investment, “We are excited to increase our exposure and bring more of our co-investors into this opportunity, further supporting Jio Platforms in its mission to bring the power of high-quality and affordable digital services to a mass consumer and small businesses population. The investment momentum behind Jio validates a compelling business model and underscores our admiration for Mukesh Ambani, his team and their courageous vision in creating and building one of the world’s most remarkable technology companies.”
Reliance Jio says this investment by Silver Lake is further testament to the world-class digital platform that Jio has built, powered by leading technologies, such as Broadband connectivity, Smart Devices, Cloud and Edge Computing, Big Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Augmented and Mixed Reality and Blockchain. This investment in Jio Platforms follows Silver Lake’s investments in other tech companies, including Airbnb, Alibaba, Ant Financial, Alphabet’s Verily and Waymo units, Dell Technologies and Twitter, to name a few.
Silver Lake was launched in 1999 with the focus on investment in technology companies. You may probably not know 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.
Just last month, 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.
This investment will give Jio Platforms a solid foundation to build on, towards what Reliance Jio says is a Digital India vision for 1.3 billion people and businesses across the country, including small businesses, micro-businesses and farmers.
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