RIL’s retail arm likely to invest ₹300 crore in robotics startup
NEW DELHI: Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd. (RRVL), the retail arm of Reliance Industries, is likely to invest around ₹300 crore, or about $40 million, and pick up a minority stake in domestic supply chain robotics company, Addverb Technologies Pvt. Ltd., as part of the proposed transaction, two persons familiar with the deal said.
If this deal fructifies, it will value Noida-based Addverb Technologies at $210-220 million (₹1,590-1,660 crore), both the persons added on condition of anonymity.
Email queries sent to RRVL and Addverb Technologies did not elicit any response till the time of publishing this news report.
Addverb Technologies was launched in 2016 by former Asian Paints executives Satish Shukla, Sangeet Kumar, Prateek Jain, Bir Singh, Amit Kumar, and Neeraj Sharma. The startup specialises in providing intra-logistics automation solutions that enables smarter motion for the warehouse and supply chain industry. The company is said to be improving the space utilisation in warehouses and factories by leveraging robotics and warehouse automation. It caters to various industries such as e-commerce, health, aviation, retail, grocery, fashion, thirdparty logistics, pharmaceuticals and auto components.
Addverb Technologies, which counts Amazon, Flipkart, ITC and Coca-Cola among its clients, has raised over $10 million from Jalaj Ashwin Dani of Asian Paints in two tranches in 2017 and 2019, as per VCCEdge--the data intelligence platform of VCCircle. In June, the company was also reported to have initiated talks with institutional investors to raise $80-120 million.
The company posted net sales of ₹111.2 crore during fiscal year 2019-20 as against ₹64.9 crore a year before, as per VCCEdge data.
RRVL is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and holding company of all the retail companies under the RIL Group.