In what is its 6th or 7th acquisition in recent months, Reliance Industries Limited has taken over e-commerce platform Fynd. Fynd is an online platform backed by Google and helps you to find branded products and you can shop on the platform as well, as you do on any e-commerce site. According to the filings RIL has made, it has paid Rs 295 crore to acquire 87.6% stake in Fynd. This is seen as another solid step RIL is taking towards its much-awaited e-commerce foray, though it has been stated that Fynd may continue to operate as a separate entity for now. The deal has been concluded through RIL’s wholly owned subsidiary Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings Ltd. A provision to invest an additional Rs 100 crore has also been made as part of the takeover terms.
It is also learnt that the three co-founders, Harsh Shah, Farooq Adam and Sreeraman MG, along with the staff numbering around 150, will continue to be around, running the day to day operations.
Interestingly, Reliance Retail has been selling 25 of its brands on the Fynd platform and the business association between Fynd and Reliance is over six years old, according to one of the co-founders.
Fynd has on its platform over 600 brands and has a retail presence on the ground with 9,000 brick and mortar stores. The retail outlets primarily deal in fashion. This evolved O2O model might come in quite handy when Reliance launches its e-commerce venture. There is expectation that the big announcement may come on August 12 at the company’s AGM, following a tradition RIL has built.
Fynd has been raising funds, possibly small ticket ones since it has all of 50 investors and the amount raised from them is Rs 100 crore. All of them will stand to make around 5 to 6 times of what they put in, it is learnt. IIFL, Kae Capital, Patni and Axis Capital are some of the key investors. The sum invested by Google in a Series C round is not disclosed.
Embibe, EasyGov, Reverie Technology, Sankhya Sutra Labs and Haptik, are all acquisitions made by RIL, apart from acquiring a majority stake in Grab.