Reliance to invest $100 million on JioMusic Saavn combined music entity
New Delhi : Reliance Industries (RIL) has decided to signed agreement for combining online music streaming platform Saavn with JioMusic. This Indian conglomerate will invest over $1 billion on the combined entity, with JioMusic’s understood valuation at $670 million.
According to a statement, the incorporated business will be designed into a common media platform targeting global reach, cross-border original content, an independent marketplace, consolidated data and so on. It will be one of the largest mobile advertising mediums,.
Sources confirmed that Reliance Industries will acquire a partial stake from the existing shareholders of Saavn for $104 million. The shareholder base of Saavn includes Tiger Global Management, Liberty Media, and Bertelsmann among others.
Besides, RIL will invest up to $100 million for development and extension of the platform. The company will continue to control the over-the-top media platform available on all app stores. The three co-founders of Saavn, Rishi Malhotra, Paramdeep Singh and Vinodh Bhat, will continue in their leadership roles and will possibly promote growth of the combined entity.
JioMusic, Jio’s music streaming service, has music content from all the major Indian and international labels, with over 16 million HD songs across 20 languages.
While, Savan, founded in 2007, is the only streaming service to make top grossing app charts in multiple markets, including India, the US, the UK, Canada, the UAE and Singapore.
The deal will merge the streaming media expertise of Saavn with the connectivity and digital network of Jio. With a considerable market opportunity of over one billion users in India and globally, the combined entity plans to invest forcefully to accelerate growth, which will benefit the entire system, including users, music labels, artists and advertisers.
Akash Ambani, director, Reliance Jio, said, “The investment and combination of our music assets with Saavn underlines our commitment to further boost the digital ecosystem and provide unlimited digital entertainment services to consumers over a strong uninterrupted network... We believe that their (Saavn’s) highly experienced management team will be instrumental in expanding Jio-Saavn to an extensive user base, thereby strengthening our position in the Indian streaming market.”
Also, Rishi Malhotra, co-founder and CEO, Saavn, said, “Nearly 10 years ago, we had a vision to build a connected music platform, dedicated to South Asian culture across the globe. Our alignment with Reliance enables us to create one of the largest, fastest-growing, and most capable media platforms in the world.”
The combined platform will also build on Saavn’s original programming, Artist Originals (AO), which has changed the improvement, marketing and distribution of original audio content. AO has delivered some of the top records in India and South Asia, including Zack Knight and Jasmin Walia’s Bom Diggy.
