India’s Jio Platforms Secures $747M Investment from Private Equity Firm

The U.S.-based private equity firm Silver Lake has invested Rs 5,656 crore ($746.74 million) in Jio Platforms, the digital-services arm of India’s Reliance Industries, which also recently received a sizable investment from Facebook.

The deal values Jio Platforms at an equity value of Rs 4.9 lakh crore ($64 billion). This represents a 12.5 percent premium on the equity valuation from Facebook’s $5.7 billion investment, revealed April 22. The social media giant acquired a 9.99 percent stake in Jio Platforms.

Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director, Reliance Industries, said, “I am delighted to welcome Silver Lake as a valued partner in continuing to grow and transform the Indian digital ecosystem for the benefit of all Indians. Silver Lake has an outstanding record of being a valuable partner for leading technology companies globally. Silver Lake is one of the most respected voices in technology and finance. We are excited to leverage insights from their global technology relationships for the Indian Digital Society’s transformation.”

Egon Durban, Silver Lake co-CEO and managing partner, said, “Jio Platforms is one of the world’s most remarkable companies, led by an incredibly strong and entrepreneurial management team who are driving and actualizing a courageous vision. They have brought extraordinary engineering capabilities to bear on bringing the power of low-cost digital services to a mass consumer and small businesses population. The market potential they are addressing is enormous, and we are honored and pleased to have been invited to partner with Mukesh Ambani and the team at Reliance and Jio to help further the Jio mission.”