Recap 2020: Massive investments in India despite the pandemic

Job cuts, blanket bans, and a whole lot of fundraising: 2020 has been a year filled with drama and a “survival of the fittest” theme ringing true throughout.

It also heralded big changes. The concept of a digital India has been touted for nearly a decade now, but it was the Covid-19 pandemic that accelerated the adoption of technology in the country, with ecommerce companies such as Reliance Retail, Amazon, and Flipkart gaining massively in a retail market worth US$850 billion.

Tech in Asia has gathered some of the key developments in the Indian startup space in 2020 that can help get you up to speed.

Reliance Retail set to challenge the ecommerce status quo

Some of India’s biggest companies, including the Aditya Birla Group and the Godrej Group, have tried their hand at the ecommerce market. Many of them have given up, including these two firms.

Ambitious and deep-pocketed, Reliance Retail has taken a different path, operating with the goal of becoming the largest retailer in the country. The company, which is a subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Limited, serves over 3.5 million customers each week through nearly 12,000 physical stores in over 6,500 cities and towns across India.

See also: Why is Facebook betting $5.7b on Reliance?

In November, Reliance Retail announced that it would be receiving US$1.3 billion from the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia – the country’s sovereign wealth fund – marking it as one of the largest deals in a slew of investments flowing into the retail company.

Having achieved a massive US$6.4 billion funding run since September, Reliance Retail moved to acquire the retail unit of fellow Indian conglomerate Future Group in August in a US$3.4 billion deal to bolster its expansion plans.

See also: After raising $25b for Jio, Reliance is starting its funding run for its retail unit

The deal, which is still being disputed by Amazon, gives Reliance a massive infrastructure boost, opening up access to over 1,800 of Future Group’s stores spread across over 420 cities in India.

With its massive war chest, 2021 will be the year Reliance Retail embarks on a battle to challenge the leaders in the Indian ecommerce space, namely Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart.

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