Reliance to acquire 87.6% stake in Google-backed Fynd for Rs 295 Cr

Making another acquisition for its much talked about e-commerce foray, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industry Limited has announced that it's acquiring Google-backed fashion e-commerce platform Fynd.

RIL through its wholly-owned subsidiary Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings Ltd, will acquire an 87.6% stake in Fynd for Rs 295 crore, shows a regulatory filing at BSE. Besides, RIL also has reserved an option to further invest up to Rs 100 crore in the Mumbai-based startup by December 2021.

Entrackr had exclusively reported about the deal in March this year, however, Fynd's co-founder Harsh Shah had denied any such conversation with RIL then.

The development comes at a time when Reliance is about to launch its e-commerce play, a business where Amazon and Flipkart will only be wary of Ambani-led firm.

Fynd, which works directly with brands, will continue to work separately after the deal. RIL is likely to integrate Fynd's omnichannel strategy to power offline sellers and brand for its e-commerce business.

Also read: Amazon may acquire 26% stake in Reliance Retail

According to Shah, Reliance Retail has been a customer of Fynd for more than six years, and over 25 brands from Fynd are owned by the RIL's physical retail chain.

Shah also claims to have helped Reliance Retail making a lot of sales through its flagship product called Find Store. He further revealed that Fynd is profitable on an operating level and expects to be fully profitable in the coming quarters.

The Google-backed firm has raised over Rs 100 crore from over 50 investors including IIFL, Kae Capital, Patni and Axis Capital amongst many others. In March 2018, the search giant had led undisclosed Series C round in it.

This is overall sixth acquisition by the RIL in the past 12-18 months. Previously, it acquired controlling stakes in Embibe, EasyGov, Reverie Technology, Sankhya Sutra Labs and most recently Haptik, a Mumbai-based Artificial Intelligence-based conversational platform.

Apart from these, it’s reportedly eyeing a majority stake in Mumbai-based logistics startup Grab.