It’s incredible what Mr Mukesh Ambani has been able to achieve with Jio (and Reliance Industries). You may dislike him or his practices, but you have to admire his vision and business acumen to raise well over $30 Billion during a pandemic and world recession.
 
In my view, this also burst several well-entrenched myths:
1) Indian conglomerates can never scale and can’t compete with China in terms of their capital appetite.
2) TELCO business, especially in a low ARPU country like India with extremely high spectrum cost, doesn’t have any money-making opportunity. This myth is made popular by the incumbents like Vodafone & BSNL.
3) Tech giants like Facebook or Google or Qualcomm don’t care about India. They don’t see
great opportunity or growth with India. 
Look at the list (Courtesy: The-Ken.com) of investments Jio has got in the last few months, unbelievable:
  • Apr, 2020: “Facebook Invests $5.7 Billion in India’s Jio Platforms”
  • May, 2020: “Silver Lake To Invest $748M In India’s Jio Platforms”
  • May, 2020: “Vista Follows Facebook Into India’s Jio With $1.5 Billion Digital Bet
  • May, 2020: “General Atlantic Invests $870 Million in India’s Reliance Jio”
  • May, 2020: “KKR Invests $1.5 Billion in Reliance’s Jio Platforms In Biggest Deal In Asia”
  • June, 2020: “Mubadala invests $1.2 billion in Jio Platforms”
  • June, 2020: “Abu Dhabi Sovereign Fund to Invest $1.2 Billion in Jio Platforms”
  • June, 2020: “TPG invests nearly $600Mn in Jio Platforms”
  • June, 2020: “L Catterton’s invests $250 Million In Jio Platforms”
  • June, 2020: “Saudi Arabia’s PIF invests $1.5bn in Jio Platforms”
  • June, 2020: “Silver Lake Invests Another $602 Million in Reliance’s Jio”
  • July, 2020: “Intel invests $253 million in India’s Reliance Jio Platforms”
  • July, 2020: “Qualcomm invests $97 million in Jio Platforms”
He has cleared nearly the $20 Billion in debt (total debt of Reliance Industries), to have $10 Billion in surplus cash. Hat’s off to him!
There are tons of lessons for every entrepreneur and management student to learn from the birth of Jio to date. There is a cautious footnote too with Ambani family & Reliance – the sharp contrast to what happened with his brother (Mr Anil Ambani) businesses due to unserviced debt.
// Google will pick up 7.7% stake in Reliance Industries’ technology venture for Rs 33,737 crores, richest Indian Mukesh Ambani said on Wednesday. This takes the cumulative fundraising by Reliance in less than three months to Rs 2,12,809 crore //

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