After Silver Lake and Facebook, American private equity and venture capital firm Vista Equity Partners have announced an investment of $1.5 billion in Indian telecommunication major Jio, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries promoted by Asia’s richest businessman Mukesh Ambani. Vista's 2.32 percent equity stake will be the largest in Jio Platforms after Reliance Industries and Facebook.
In April, Facebook announced a hefty investment of $5.7 billion in Jio, the largest mobile network operator in India with over 370 million users. The latter has raised over $8 billion from leading technology investors in less than three weeks.
India has been trying to woo US businesses away from China following tension between the two nations after President Donald Trump accused Beijing of spreading the coronavirus worldwide.
New Delhi has reached out to hundreds of US companies through its diplomatic missions, offering special incentives. Several state governments have also reached out to US entities planning to move out of China with incentives to shift their manufacturing bases to those states.
India has been under lockdown since 25 March to stop the spread of COVID-19 and it is expected the third phase of the lockdown will expire on 17 May. The corona caseload has spiralled to reach 56,342 as of Friday. This includes 16,540 cases of recovery and 1,886 deaths, according to data released by the federal Health Ministry.
