Reliance May Acquire Multiple Niche E-Commerce Players Like Urban Ladder, Milkbasket And Zivame: Report

In a major development, the world's fourth richest man Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is said to be in talks to acquire multiple online service providers and niche e-commerce players in a bid to strengthen and expand reach and control at a rapid pace reports Economic Times.

RIL is believed to be in talks with online furniture seller brand Urban Ladder, milk delivery platform Milkbasket, e-pharmacy major Netmeds and online lingerie seller Zivame, even as it is said to be in the final stages of taking over Kishore Biyani's entire Future Retail.

RIL's talks with Urban Ladder are also said to have reached an advanced stage, and a deal is being pegged at about $30 million. The deal could add an established furniture brand and supply chain with offline stores to RIL's portfolio, helping the Ambani make a major foray into the furniture space.

Over the past few years, RIL has taken over or invested in a stream of players from multiple sectors to strengthen and expand its own bouquet of offerings, which include ed-tech startup Embibe, music streaming application Saavn, O2O commerce platform Fynd, logistics plyer Grab, AI-based chatbot major Haptik, local language services provider Reverie and small business platform NowFloats.

“As a policy, we do not comment on media speculation and rumours. Our company evaluates various opportunities on an ongoing basis,” an RIL spokesperson was quoted as saying in the report.