Microsoft May Bag $2 Billion in Reliance Jio Platforms

Reliance may grab another excellent investment for its Jio platforms. As per a Livemint report, Microsoft is negotiating an investment, estimated at $ 2 billion, for Jio platforms.

Just last week Reliance announced that it had raised ₹11,367 crore investment from the US equity firm KKR. Before this, Reliance raised huge stakes from Facebook, Silver Lake, Vista Equity, and General Atlantic.

"Microsoft has been in discussions with several players in the digital payments services space. With Reliance, Microsoft is interested in buying a more than a 2.5% stake in Jio Platforms," Livemint mentioned a source as saying.

As per the report, there's no assurance the investment will go through though Microsoft has shown curiosity in buying a stake.

It is to be noted that Microsoft and Reliance are already long-term cloud partners. Microsoft is also working with Reliance Jio to bring its xCloud gaming platform to India.

Earlier this year during an event in Mumbai, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella restated the importance of partnership with Reliance Jio.

"We've been working with Reliance across the entire stack - everything from what they are going to be doing with Azure in their own data centres and how they will extend it," Nadella had said.

Distinctly, Bharti Telecom, the promoter company of Bharti Airtel, raised more than $1.15 billion through accelerated book-build offer of Bharti Airtel stocks. Airtel may use the money to clear the debts.