Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani is set to invest in Israeli start-ups, reports "Bloomberg." Bloomberg says, "He is scouting for startups that may dovetail with his own plans for e-commerce and phone services in India. For that, he is willing to look as far as Israel and Silicon Valley in the US."
"Bloomberg" added that GenNext Ventures, owned by his Reliance Industries Ltd., is talking to other venture capital firms and private equity investors to pick out candidates. Managing Partner Vivek Rai Gupta said in an interview. The selected startups could use Reliance’s network to gain access to a market that is now the biggest for Facebook Inc. after the US.
“It can be a two-way street,” Gupta told "Bloomberg," “It gives them an opportunity to come to a big market like India and for us, it is an opportunity to interface with the best new ideas from that country.”
Ambani is readying a $13.6 billion high-speed 4G phone network across India, where Morgan Stanley sees e-commerce reaching $100 billion by 2020. GenNext, backed by the refining-to-retail conglomerate, is an “evergreen fund that will invest opportunistically,” Gupta said.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 31, 2015
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