Reliance Industries  agreed to buy an Indian technology startup funded by Google, scooping up an inventory-management platform and adding to the list of smaller deals the conglomerate has assembled to take on Amazon.com Inc.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s group agreed to buy a controlling stake in Shopsense Retail Technologies Pvt, which operates the Fynd platform, according to a statement dated August 2. The investment unit of Reliance will pay as much as 2.95 billion rupees ($42 million) in cash, with an option to plow in a further 1 billion rupees. Once completed by December 2021, the total investment would translate to an 87.6% stake, the company said.
Reliance is adding Fynd as part of its focus on consumer businesses and mobile phone services as growth areas for the sprawling energy-to-retail conglomerate. India’s largest retailer has said it intends to transform itself from a grocery and neighborhood store-based empire to an online powerhouse as India becomes a battleground for giants such as Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc.’s Flipkart Online Services Pvt.