Reliance Retail acquires Urban Ladder for ₹182 crore – at a sixth of the startup’s peak valuation in 2018

• Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail has acquired furniture retail startup Urban Ladder for ₹182 crore taking up a 96% share in the startup.
• Reliance Retail will further invest another ₹75 crore by December 2023.
• During its peak in 2018, the startup had a valuation of ₹1200 crore, in 2019 the valuation had come down to ₹750 crore.

Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail has acquired furniture retail startup Urban Ladder for ₹182 crore taking up a 96% share in the startup. Reliance Retail will further invest another ₹75 crore by December 2023.

The retail giant had been in talks with the distressed startup for a long time now. Urban Ladder has gone through its own ups and downs and even after having raised over ₹857 crore got sold for a mere ₹182 crore. During its peak in 2018, the startup had a valuation of ₹1200 crore, in 2019 the valuation had come down to ₹750 crore.

In 2018, Urban Ladder underwent an organizational restructuring earlier this year, and had to let go off 90 employees, after which it had managed to post profit.

Some of Urban Ladder’s marquee investors were Ratan Tata, Sequoia India, Steadview Capital, SAIF Partners, and Kalaari Capital.

Reliance Retail has been on an acquisition spree having picked up stakes in startups like Zivame, Netmeds and marking its foray into new areas of retail. Its own e-commerce venture JioMart has also been picking up pace and giving tough competition to the likes of BigBasket, Grofers in the grocery space, whereas its fashion retail bet Ajio.com too has resurfaced to be a competitor to Myntra.

However, the Mukesh Ambani-led retail giant’s biggest acquisition, that of Future Retail for ₹25,000 crore , is currently being challenged by Amazon.

Reliance Retail, which is looking to maintain its dominance in India’s retail industry, has raised over $6.3 billion from investors over the last three months.

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Mukesh Ambani had also revealed plans of hiving off Reliance Retail and Jio and listing them separately.