Minority stakes in Glance, Dunzo signal RIL's attempt for retail expansion

All told, RIL has now picked up minority stakes in retail online platform start-ups with founders leading the game

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has found a new way to expand its presence in the retail sweepstakes — collaborate by taking substantial minority stakes in retail tech platforms rather than making outright acquisitions as it has done earlier.

This week, the conglomerate announced that it would be investing $200 million (for a 17 per cent stake) in Glance, a mobile lock-screen content company backed by Google (which is also an equity partner in RIL subsidiary Jio Platforms) and run by mobile ad platform InMobi. This investment will enable RIL to offer its services — news, music, entertainment — on the new