RIL acquires 85% stake in NowFloats for $20 Mn

Reliance Industries Limited owned Reliance Strategic Business Ventures Limited (RSBVL) has acquired 85% stake in SaaS platform NowFloats for about $20 million.

Last month, Entrackr had exclusively reported that RIL would acquire a controlling stake in NowFloats.

RSBVL proposes to make a further investment of up to Rs 75 crore by December 2020, subject to NowFloats achieving certain milestones. Following the additional investment, its shareholding in the Hyderabad-based firm will increase to 89.66%, said a regulatory filing with the BSE.

This investment will further help RIL's digital and new commerce initiatives, the filing added.

Backed by the likes of Blume Venture, Iron Pillar, IIFL and Omidyar Network, the Jasminder Gulati-steered firm had raised $10 million in its Series B round in January 2017. Since then, they were looking to score a larger round. However, it only managed to raise funds in small tranches as a bridge round and convertible debt from the existing investors.

The seven-year-old B2B startup runs three flagship products – Dictate, WildFire, and YourApp - and it deals in several verticals including coaching and institute, doctors and clinics, manufacturing, hotels, and salons & spas.

For the financial year ended on March 31, 2019, NowFloats had registered a jump of 73% in revenue to Rs 32.56 crore. It also controlled its net losses to Rs 43.24 crore in FY19 as compared to Rs 47.49 crore in FY18.

For Mukesh Ambani-led RIL, NowFloats will be the sixth acquisition in 2019. Earlier, it has acquired a controlling stake in fashion e-commerce platform Fynd and conversational AI chatbot firm Haptik. It also took over Reveries, EasyGov, and Sankhya Sutra Lab.