This marks the second billion dollar investment by Silver Lake in a Reliance Industries subsidiary after the $1.35 billion investment in Jio Platforms announced earlier this year.

Reliance Industries shares were about 1% higher.

Reliance Retail Limited, a subsidiary of RRVL, operates India’s largest and fastest growing retail business serving close to 640 million footfalls across its nearly 12,000 stores nationwide.

Reliance Retail through its new commerce strategy has started a digitalization of small and unorganised merchants and plans to expand the network to over 2 crore of these merchants, helping them benefit from the use of technology tools and efficient supply chain infrastructure.

Commenting on the transaction with Silver Lake, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries, said, “I am delighted to extend our relationship with Silver Lake to our transformational efforts of building an inclusive partnership with millions of small merchants while providing value to Indian consumers across the country in the Indian retail sector. We believe technology will be key to bringing the much-needed transformation in this sector so that various constituents of the retail ecosystem can collaborate to build inclusive growth platforms. Silver Lake will be an invaluable partner in implementing our vision for Indian Retail.”

With more than $60 billion in combined assets under management, Silver Lake is a global leader in large-scale technology investing.

Egon Durban, Co-CEO and Managing Partner of Silver Lake, said, “We are pleased to deepen our relationship with Reliance with this investment. The success of JioMart in such a short time span, especially while India, along with the rest of the world, battles the COVID-19 pandemic, is truly unprecedented, and the most exciting growth phase has just begun. Reliance’s New Commerce strategy could become the disruptor of this decade. We are thrilled to have been invited to partner with Reliance in their mission for Indian Retail.”