RIL keen to invest in start-ups

Mumbai, March 13 (PTI): After mentoring 11 start-ups, the venture investment arm of Reliance Industries is now looking forward to investing in new companies which will be crucial to its growth, a top official said today.

Eleven start-ups completed a mentoring programme, launched by RIL's arm Gennext Ventures and Microsoft Ventures recently. Both the partners today announced that they had started inviting applications for the second batch, where around a dozen start-ups will be mentored.

"For the second batch, our intent is yes (we will invest). For the first batch, we were not ready, we were learning. In the second batch, we think we can assimilate the learnings from the first batch and start to internally line up so that we are in a position to start investing," Gennext Ventures managing partner Vivek Rai Gupta said.

Both RIL and Microsoft have not invested in any of the 11 companies, which underwent the mentorship programme, he said, stressing that introduction to venture capital funds resulted in 30-40 per cent of them getting commitments.

For investing, it will be looking at companies engaged in the digital space, including financial services, security, energy management, healthcare, home automation and connected cars, he said.

Gupta, however, did not give any idea about the money which RIL would invest, saying Gennext is "flexible".

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL)