170 Startups Incubated By JioGenNext In 7 Years, 21 Acquired By Various Firms: RIL

Reliance Industries Limited’s (RIL’s) startup accelerator initiative JioGenNext has incubated 170 startups in seven years, according to the Mukesh Ambani-led company’s annual report for the financial year 2021-22 (FY22).

The conglomerate said that it has conducted 16 cohorts since its inception. In total, JioGenNext claims to have received more than 12,153 applications so far from budding entrepreneurs. Of the 170 mentored startups, 79 have raised funding and 21 startups have been acquired by various firms. 

In total, startups under the incubator programme have raised more than INR 2,600 Cr in early-stage venture capital (VC), the report said.

Founded in 2014, the JioGenNext accelerator programme has onboarded 30 corporate partners and more than 90 mentors to enable startups to scale operations and offer funding and portfolio management for selected founders. 

The annual report said that JioGenNext also launched its Market Access Program (MAP) in FY22 to enable early-stage startups to achieve scale. As part of its first cohort, 11 startups were selected which included farmer-focused fintech platform Farm Infinity, fashiontech startup Bigthinx, among others. 

The program aims “to build bridges for founders in the RIL/ Jio ecosystem; establish and accelerate interactions for startups with internal stakeholders to explore partnerships and opportunities that can help them scale fast”, the annual report said. 

The MAP program also aims to advise the startups on product innovation, go-to-market strategy, hiring, marketing, fundraising, among other things. 

The oil-to-telecom conglomerate said that it has also incubated 15 Israeli startups since 2017 as part of its Labs/02 initiative. It operates the incubator jointly in collaboration with Israel Innovation Authority (IIA), OurCrowd, Hebrew University and Ben-Gurion University. 

RIL has so far approved more than $12 Mn in grants for the Israeli startups, having vetted more than 1,500 startups in the process. It predominantly invests in deep tech startups, offering them funding and mentorship and leveraging these companies for engagement with its telecom, retail and oil-to-chemical businesses .

In its annual report, the conglomerate also reiterated that it is committed towards investing in solar and hydrogen gigafactories as well as in other future technologies. 

Touting its investments in the cleantech space, RIL said that its joint venture (JV) Jio-bp (British Petroleum) has operationalised a battery swapping service with foodtech major Swiggy. In addition, the company last year also tied up with BluSmart to offer charging facilities in Delhi-NCR.