General Atlantic betting on Jio Platforms’ consumer tech play: India managing director

General Atlantic is betting on Jio Platforms for its large consumer reach and potential offerings in healthcare, IoT and content. An investment of Rs 6,598.38 crore for 1.34% stake in Jio Platforms that took two years to stitch is for the long haul, Sandeep Naik, MD & Head of General Atlantic’s business in India & Southeast Asia told ET’s Devina Sengupta and Arijit Barman. Edited excerpts:

What attracted GA to Jio?

To build a consumer tech company in India, you really need to have access and distribution to the belly of the Indian market. You can’t build a large scalable consumer tech companies just focusing on the top. You need to reach out to the consumers of Bharat’s middle class and the lower middle class and deliver digital products and services to them. In that context, if you look at what Jio has achieved, 388 million subscribers, they have actually reached out to that particular customer base, where we can then lead the base connectivity and the mobile services that Jio offers and build digital products and services on top of it that can really help the digital economy. And that was the most attractive thing for me about the Jio platform.