Reliance Industries To Buy Urban Ladder And Milkbasket To Increase E-Retail Reach

It seems Reliance Industries is expanding its e-commerce presence in the country as it is reportedly planning to acquire Urban Ladder and Milkbasket. In fact, the talks between both companies are now at an advanced stage. The deal with Urban Ladder is likely to be close around $30 million, and Reliance will make further investment.

The latest development comes at that time when Reliance Industries is in talks with Netmeds (e-pharmacy) and Zivame to increase its presence in the retail segment.
"They have got interest from other players as well and, while le the discussions are advanced, a deal has not been finalized yet," sources close to the development were quoted by Times Of India.

The sources also confirmed that earlier, Milkbasket was in talks with Bigbasket and Amazon India, but that deal does not go through. "They (Milkbasket) are negotiating for a better valuation than previous suitors and are thus in discussions with RIL. The recent capital infusion of $5 million has bought them extra time," sources said.

Online grocery shopping has been increased as people are avoiding going out due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That's why e-commerce platforms are doing really well and buying new firms to increase their profit margins.

Reliance Jio Might Buy TikTok India; In Talks With ByteDance

Meanwhile, the companies have recently started the conversations, and soon they (Reliance Jio and ByteDance) will make some announcements on that front. However, the companies have not shared any information on the deal. If this deal goes through, then it will help Reliance Jio a lot as TikTok has a huge subscriber list. On the other hand, Microsoft is also planning to TikTok US business.

For the unaware, the short video platform is looking for buyers in both US and India as both countries have banned the application due to security concerns. Apart from banning TikTok, the US is planning to ban Alibaba and other Chinese firms.