Reliance Venture Asset Management, the corporate venturing division of India-based conglomerate Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, has invested in Gradatim IT Ventures, a service company for microfinance businesses.
Local newspaper Economic Times of India said Reliance had paid $7m to $9m for a minority stake in Gradatim, which was its third deal in three months after similar-sized investments in Tessolve Services and Reverse Logistics.
Since its formation in early 2006, Reliance Venture has invested in 13 deals, including India’s largest online travel portal, Yatra.com, as well as Suvidhaa Infoserve, Stoke, Pelago, Sequans Communications, E-Band Communications, Seedfund and two Massachusetts Institute of Technology-startups, Dhama Innovations and Scalable Display Technologies.
Reliance Venture is also a sponsor of MIT’s student entrepreneurship competition as well as a similar one at Stanford, two universities in the US.
Harshal Shah, chief executive of Reliance Venture, when the Stanford sponsorship was agreed in April said: "As a company philosophy, we have believed in being patrons of initiatives aimed at promoting collaborative Indo-US investments. Our recent association with MIT $100k entrepreneurship competition and now with Stanford BASES is a testament to this approach."