Telecommunications firm Reliance Jio has acquired a majority stake in India-based personal concierge app developer Haptik for Rs 7bn ($102m), allowing media group Bennett, Coleman & Co (BCC) to exit.
Reliance Jio, a subsidiary of diversified conglomerate Reliance Industries, will take a 87% stake in the business, while the remaining shares will be held by Haptik’s founders and employees.
The deal will involve Reliance Jio paying approximately $33.6m to buy out the company’s existing backers and will invest the rest in the form of equity funding.
Founded in 2013, Haptik has built an artificial intelligence-powered platform that allows enterprise customers and consumers to roll out text and voice-based conversational products. Its customers include electronics manufacturer Samsung, beverage producer Coca-Cola and fast food chain.
Haptik received an investment from BCC subsidiary Times Internet in 2016 that was reported by TechCrunch to be $11.2m in size. Venture capital firm Kalaari Capital had supplied $1m in seed funding for the company two years before.
Reliance Jio director Akash Ambani said: “This strategic investment underlines our commitment to further boost the digital ecosystem and provide Indian users conversational AI enabled devices with multilingual capabilities. We believe voice interactivity will be the primary mode of interaction for digital India.”