After beefing up its stakes in music streaming, web-exclusive content through investment in AltBalaji and Eros Digital, Reliance Industries Limited has gradually been creating a conducive environment for Jio ecosystem. The group’s $30 billion bet on Jio would be monetised through bundling of content and services in the subscription.
Just within a month of consolidating Saavn with Jio Music, Ambani is eyeing to acquire online education portal Embibe. But, this time he would be picking up stake in the Mumbai-based company via his family office.
The Reliance Family Office is investing about Rs 100 crore for the complete buyout of Embibe, reports ET citing sources. The potential investment will mark the complete exit for promoters as well as current investors. The Aditi Awasthi-led company counts Kalaari Capital and Lightbox Ventures as investors.
The duo had invested about $4 million in the ed-tech company focused on test prep for IIT (JEE), CET, banking amongst a few others.
Also read: With Saavn, EROS, ALTBalaji and 160 Mn subscribers, Jio tends to outsmart Amazon and Netflix
Education was one of the missing pieces for Jio ecosystem. The acquisition will give another product to hook youngsters within the Jio ecosystem. Embibe focuses on engineering, medical, banking test prep segment. The same young audience who write these exams essentially uses music and content streaming such as Eros, AltBalaji, and Saavn.
How is RIL creating an ecosystem for Jio?
After betting a total investment of over $30 billion to break into India’s cellular market, the mobile carrier is likely to spend over $23 billion as it eyes areas beyond wireless services. A large chunk of the estimated investment is likely to deploy towards fiber-to-home, digital TV, and the enterprise business, as per Moody’s Investors Service estimate.
Besides playing above cards, RIL has aggressively been building addictive layers around Jio through a slew of investment and consolidations. Recently, the Mumbai based group also had invested in Ahmedabad-based e-commerce platform Infibeam.
The recent investments are a part of group’s long-term strategy of building digital dominance in the local market (through cellular and strong content and services) as Verizon and AT&T did in the US.
With over 160 million cellular subscriber base and a mix of investments and in-house products, Reliance is certainly on its way to emerging as a local digital juggernaut.
