How Reliance’s Mukesh Ambani is betting on startups to become new e-commerce juggernaut, take on Amazon, Flipkart

Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani’s penchant for technology startups in India seems to be only getting stronger. Textile-to-telecom giant Reliance Industries’ Chairman Mukesh Ambani has been making a beeline for such startups from past few months, which experts believed is to set up the digital infrastructure framework, to become the e-commerce juggernaut. If Mukesh Ambani replicates Reliance Jio’s telecom disruption in around $39 billion Indian e-commerce market then it might put Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart’s grand future plans in jeopardy.

Building Digital Infrastructure

While Reliance has been investing and acquiring, though not very often, startups but since around September 2018, the group had poured capital in three startups and gobbled five startups — all technology businesses. For instance, in logistics, it backed artificial intelligence (AI) startup Netradyne that focuses on the driver and commercial vehicle safety and earlier this month it acquired last mile logistics company Grab A Grub.