Well, that is one way to hit your annual investment targets. US-listed chip and data provider Intel on Friday said it would invest $253.5m for a 0.39% stake in India-based phone operator Jio Platforms, joining a roster of high-profile investors to have backed the spin-off from Reliance Industries in the past few weeks.
Intel joins a list of dozen investors, including social network Facebook, private equity firms Silver Lake, General Atlantic and KKR, and sovereign wealth funds Mubadala and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, investing in aggregate $15.5bn in Jio at up to $65bn in value. Reliance still controls Jio as majority shareholder and said Jio Platforms was also making significant investments across its digital ecosystem for future growth, including areas like broadband connectivity, smart devices, cloud and edge computing, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, augmented and mixed reality and blockchain. Intel would be a partner.
Wendell Brooks, president of Intel Capital, said: “Jio Platforms’ focus on applying its impressive engineering capabilities to bring the power of low-cost digital services to India aligns with Intel’s purpose of delivering breakthrough technology that enriches lives.”
Since 1991, Intel Capital has invested $12.9bn in more than 1,582 companies worldwide, and 692 portfolio companies have gone public or participated in a merger, including last month’s sale of portfolio company Rubikloud acquired by Kinaxis. At the start of 2018, Intel Capital led a round for the retail analytics platform Rubikloud that included OpenText Enterprise Apps Fund and existing investor Access Industries.
With about 30 years of investing and now this investment, you can see why Intel Capital was confident back in May it would continue to hit its $300m to $500m investment target this year.
Source: Economic Times
