To strengthen its position in e-commerce, Reliance Industries is in talks to acquire milk delivery platform Milkbasket and online furniture store Urban Ladder, multiple sources told The Times of India.
Discussions with the people at Urban Ladder have been underway for a few months and have now reached an advanced stage, four sources familiar with the matter told the newspaper. A deal could be pegged at 30 million dollars, the report said, quoting one of the sources.
Representatives at Reliance, Milkbasket and Urban Ladder did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment on the deal talk.
Reliance is led by Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, who launched an online grocery service called Jio Mart in May 2020. He has raised more than 20 billion dollars over the last few months from Facebook and Alphabet’s Google for Reliance’s digital arm, Jio Platforms, Livemint reported.
The Times of India report cited a source and added that Milkbasket had held talks with Amazon and Alibaba-backed online grocery retailer BigBasket, but it did not result in a deal because of valuation expectation mismatch. “They (Milkbasket) are negotiating for a better valuation than previous suitors and are thus in discussions with RIL. The recent capital infusion of 5 million dollar has bought them extra time,” the source said, according to The Times of India.
(With inputs from The Times of India, Reuters, Livemint)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)