Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd will acquire a majority stake in Shopsense Retail Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which runs fashion portal Fynd, for Rs 295.25 crore ($41.9 million at current exchange rates).
The company, through unit Reliance Industrial Investments & Holdings Ltd, also has an option to invest another Rs 100 crore in Fynd by December 2021. Overall, Reliance will acquire an 87.6% stake in Fynd, it said in a statement.
Reliance said the acquisition will help its digital and new commerce initiatives.
The acquisition comes after Mumbai-based Fynd raised its Series C funding in March last year. The investment was led by Google.
Other participants included Kae Capital, IIFL, Singularity Ventures, GrowX, Tracxn Labs, Venture Catalyst, the Patni family office, Hong Kong-based Axis Capital and other angel investors. In total, the startup raised Rs 60 crore, according to VCCEdge, the data research arm of Mosaic Digital.
Previously, Fynd raised a total of $4.4 million in three transactions in 2017 from seed investment platform Venture Catalysts, Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund Rocketship, IIFL Seed Ventures, Kae Capital and other investors.
Fynd was co-founded by Harsh Shah, Farooq Adam and Sreeraman MG in 2013. It sources products across various categories including clothing, footwear, jewellery and accessories, directly from nearby outlets and brings them online.
Reliance
This is the latest investment by the energy-to-retail-to-telecom conglomerate. In March, its unit Reliance Retail Ltd acquired consumer goods company ITC Ltd's menswear brand John Players.
In December last year, it purchased an equity stake of 5.56% in UK-based blockchain startup Vakt Holdings Ltd for $5 million (Rs 35 crore) to accelerate its digital journey through active participation in an emerging and evolving blockchain-enabled technologies.
It has also acquired or purchased a stake in companies such as SkyTran Inc., a US venture-funded technology company developing pod car transport systems, Netradyne Inc, which focuses on driver and fleet safety, and education-technology startup Embibe.