Reliance Industries hosted a conference for varied start-ups and technological companies. It will soon be investing in Israeli start-ups. It was already anticipated that Mukesh Ambani, will be investing in upcoming companies of Israel, US and UK.
Reliance Industries has arranged for the conference to showcase their technological capabilities to international companies. Representatives of Israeli companies participated in the conference. Sources informed that they had left for India, last week.
Companies participating in the conference
SimilarWeb of Israel was one of the prime companies to participate in the conference. Its Co-Founder and CEO, Or Offer represented the company. The company, that has raised around $40 million till now, offers traffic monitoring and analysis tools for varied websites and applications.
Offer has invested in a gaming start-up as well, namely, Moon Active. Moon Active, too participated in the conference and made presentations. Some others to present were Celltick and Winapp. Celltick has raised $42 million till date and offers medical services to mobile platforms. Winapp is an upcoming company. It has developed technology that aligns print and digital activities.
Some technological Israeli companies that participated are seeking for cooperation instead of investment. This includes Perion Network Ltd. and Outbrain Inc. Perion markets software and applications while Outbrain has built an engine that suggests contents to websites.Outbrain is a private organization based on financing rounds. It soon wants to turn to an IPO (Initial Public Offering). This is the main reason for it to seek for cooperation from the Indian private giant.
Worldwide, the Indian market is a major attraction. It is considered to be fastest developing hub for Internet and technology. International entrepreneurs are attracted towards the Chairman’s riches and the company’s ventures in oil and telecom industry. This may help them to enhance their reach.
GenNext’s role for the start-ups
Reliance Industries’ investment fund, GenNext Ventures had talked with venture capital funds and private investors in Israel, US, and UK. This may help Reliance Industries to find the right start-ups to invest.
The cooperation will benefit both the companies. GenNext Managing Partner, VivekRai Gupta informed, “Start-ups can obtain opportunities for reaching a major market, such as India, and we can gain access to the best ideas around."
GenNext Chairman, Raghunath Anant Mashelkar, informed that the company will be gaining minority holdings in companies associated with Reliance Industries’ varied sectors.GenNext has also partnered with Microsoft Ventures and initiated a program mentoring Indian start-ups. It invested in two upcoming companies. These are Videonetics Technologies, which offers video technologies and Covacsis which gives analytics services for production plants.
Bloomberg reported that Reliance Industries has $10.6 billion cash available. Apart from its widespread oil and oil refining ventures, its retail arm, Reliance Retail is the owner of marketing and lifestyle chains spread across the country. Reliance Retail is also gearing up to soon start its online e-commerce business and is hiring employees for the same.