Reliance Industries, Jio Platforms and Facebook on Wednesday announced the signing of binding agreements for an investment of Rs 43,574 crore by Facebook into Jio Platforms.

The investment valued Jio Platforms at Rs 4.62 lakh crore pre-money enterprise value ($65.95 billion, assuming a conversion rate of Rs 70 to the US dollar), said a statement from RIL.Facebook’s investment will translate into a 9.99 per cent equity stake in Jio Platforms on a fully diluted basis, it said.Facebook's investment would largest by a technology company for a minority stake anywhere in the world and also the largest FDI in the technology sector in India.

The investment valued Jio Platforms among the top 5 listed companies in India by market capitalisation, within three-and-a-half years of the launch of its commercial services.RIL said the partnership will accelerate Jio’s pursuit of its vision to enable a Digital India for 1.3 billion Indians and Indian businesses, especially small merchants, micro-businesses and farmers.

"Our focus will be India’s 60 million micro, small and medium businesses, 120 million farmers, 30 million small merchants and millions of small and medium enterprises in the informal sector, in addition to empowering people seeking various digital services," it said.Jio Platforms, a wholly-owned subsidiary of RIL, provides connectivity platform to over 388 million subscribers.Jio has built a digital platform powered by leading technologies such as broadband connectivity, smart devices, cloud and edge computing, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, internet of things, augmented and mixed reality and blockchain."Our goal with this investment is to enable new opportunities for businesses of all sizes, but especially for small businesses across India and create new and exciting digital ecosystems that will empower, enrich and uplift the lives of all 1.3 billion Indians," RIL said.Concurrent with the investment, Jio Platforms, Reliance Retail and WhatsApp also entered a commercial partnership agreement to further accelerate Reliance Retail’s New Commerce business on the JioMart platform using WhatsApp and to support small businesses on WhatsApp.WhatsApp already plays an important role in helping people and businesses connect in India.

Reliance Retail’s New Commerce platform, JioMart, is being built in partnership with small merchants and kirana shops to empower them to better serve the needs of Indian consumers.“The synergy between Jio and Facebook will help realise the ‘Digital India’ dream with its two ambitious goals — ‘Ease of Living’ and ‘Ease of Doing Business’ – for every single category of Indian people without exception.

In the post-Corona era, I am confident of India’s economic recovery and resurgence in the shortest period of time.

The partnership will surely make an important contribution to this transformation,” said Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, RIL.