1947 Tech — week 16
A few good articles that I came across this week..
1. Reliance Jio raises $500M from a consortium of Japanese banks to fund expansion
Jio will acquire the wireless assets of Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications and will roll out its FTTH broadband service shortly. It is also working on 4G-enabled laptops that can potentially disrupt India’s PC market.
Reliance Jio has raised close to $500 million (Rs 3,250 crore) in funding from a consortium of Japanese banks. The loan would be utilised to fund Jio’s ongoing capital expenditure, Reliance announced.
Jio has been the fastest-growing mobile network in India, notching up 168 million customers in under two years, and triggering a wave of consolidation in the domestic telecom sector.
Jio is focused on building a future-ready telecom network in India that can support technologies like 5G and beyond. After disrupting mobile telephony in India with dirt-cheap data offerings, Jio has now turned its attention towards the home broadband market.
2. Why Tech Titans Are Betting on India, in 14 Charts
India is the last great untapped tech market, and the world’s biggest tech companies are investing billions in its nascent internet economy.
The country has some big challenges, such as low incomes and patchy connectivity. Still, several companies are determined to capitalize on the potential bonanza as hundreds of millions of people go online for the first time.
3. DST Global in talks to invest in Swiggy
DST Global, which counts Facebook and Alibaba in its investment portfolio, is likely to join the ongoing round of fund-raising at online food delivery platform Swiggy. The investment, for which talks are in an advanced stage, will see the startup’s valuation cross the $1-billion threshold.
The new round of funding will give the four-year-old startup significant ammunition to maintain its lead over Gurgaon based rival Zomato, which last raised $150 million from Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s payment affiliate Ant Financial in February
Swiggy leads the online ordering space at about 6 million monthly orders but Zomato is narrowing the gap at a brisk pace, having clocked 5.5 million orders in March, it claimed in a blog post.
4. Walmart Is Close to $12 Billion-Plus Deal for Flipkart
Walmart is set to spend at least $12B to acquire 60 to 80 percent of Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart, according to Bloomberg sources; Walmart will acquire almost all of Tiger Global’s 20 percent holding, and a significant part of SoftBank’s 20 percent stake; the deal is expected to close within the next two weeks
5. Many sub-unicorn Indian startups are finding niche global markets
Tonbo shot to fame in October 2016, when it bagged a $100 million deal to manufacture and supply night vision sights for guns intended for the Peruvian Army. The company has since broadened its focus to use its technology to target global businesses in industries as diverse as imaging and automobiles. It is now among a clutch of Indian startups building their businesses for global markets, unlike a vast majority of startups in the country focused on the domestic market.
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Have a great week!
