As Trump Fights China, Big Tech Savors Jio and India’s Promise

In April, Reliance Industries announced Facebook Inc. would pay almost $6 billion for 9.9% of Jio Platforms, the Indian conglomerate’s telecom and internet unit. The news unleashed a deluge of interest as global investors smelled opportunity and began bombarding the company with queries, spurring Reliance to impose what it called the “7-4-45” rule, strictly rationing access for even A-list companies such as Intel, KKR, Qualcomm, and Silver Lake Capital: seven days to examine the books on a secure website, four hours of virtual meetings with top executives, and—if a deal seemed close—a final 45-minute videoconference with Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani.

By mid-July a dozen companies had concluded deals with Reliance, which netted an additional $14 billion, boosting total investment in India’s tech sector so far this year to almost $38 billion. With Jio, the immediate draw was the company’s 388 million mobile subscribers. But just as important—for backers of Jio and other Indian tech outfits—was potential access to a market with more than a half-billion mobile internet subscribers and hundreds of millions more on the way. “This is about the right to play in what promises to be the world’s second-largest digital economy,” says Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and chief executive officer of One97 Communications, which runs Paytm, India’s leading digital payments service.