NEW DELHI: Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd, the retail unit of Reliance Industries Ltd, on Tuesday said it has acquired 54% stake in robotics start-up Addverb Technologies for $132 million (Rs 983 crore approximately). The latest investment values the India-based firm to the range of $265 million to $270 million (around Rs 2,000 crore).
With this round of funding the company is planning to deploy its robots across hospitals and airports, according to Sangeet Kumar, CEO & Co-founder, Addverb Technologies. On closing the deal with Reliance, Kumar, in a statement, said, “Reliance was already one of our esteemed clients with whom we had co-created and delivered highly automated warehouses for their Jio-Mart grocery business. The comfort level and the trust factor were already in place which led to this association.”
“This strategic partnership will help us leverage 5G, battery technology through new energy initiatives, advances in material sciences to deliver more advanced and affordable robots. This association will also provide us an opportunity to deploy robots at scale in omni-channel distribution centres across different segments like e-commerce, retail, grocery, fashion, pharma, digital and petrochemical.” added Kumar.
Addverb has developed automated warehouses for brands such as Reliance, Flipkart, HUL, Asian Paints, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, ITC, Marico etc. The start-up had earlier raised around $11 million in Series A and Pre-Series funding.