The stake – valued at US$870 million – follows investments by Facebook, Silver Lake and Vista, which have now seen 15.15% of the company sold off since 22 April for around $8.85 billion.
While Jio Platforms faces the same cashflow problems as other Indian telcos in the country’s ongoing AGR dispute, the official line from Reliance Industries and its wholly-owned subsidiary Jio Platforms, is that recent investments will help accelerate India’s digital society.
Mukesh Ambani, chairman and MD 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. General Atlantic shares our vision of a Digital Society for India and strongly believes in the transformative power of digitisation in enriching the lives of 1.3 billion Indians. 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.”
Like Silver Lake – which has backed Twitter, LightBox, Expedia Group, Equinox, Airbnb and Dell, to name a few– General Atlantic is no stranger to tech investments and previously invested in Airbnb, Alibaba, Ant Financial, Box, ByteDance, Facebook, Slack, Snapchat and Uber, among others.
General Atlantic CEO, Bill Ford, said: “As long-term backers of global technology leaders and visionary entrepreneurs, we could not be more excited about investing in Jio. We share Mukesh’s conviction that digital connectivity has the potential to significantly accelerate the Indian economy and drive growth across the country. General Atlantic has a long track record working alongside founders to scale disruptive businesses, as Jio is doing at the forefront of the digital revolution in India.”
