Reliance Jio hogged the limelight post Mukesh Ambani’s announcements at the 42nd annual general meeting (AGM) of Reliance Industries (RIL). While there is a lot of excitement about the arrival of Reliance Jio, there is also some good news for entrepreneurs in the country. Ambani announced that Reliance Jio will be setting aside Rs 5,000 to fund budding startups in the country. Jio’s aim, he said, was to build a platform for young Indians who want to create ‘businesses of the future’. “Reliance Jio Digital India Startup Fund sets aside Rs 5,000 crore of venture capital to be invested over the next five years to encourage young entrepreneurs to build their businesses ground up in India,” Ambani said. He added the telecom unit plans to partner thousands of Indian entrepreneurs whose digital ventures can bloom in the grounds that Jio is preparing. “… we have created a Reliance Jio Digital India Startup Fund and are also working to create digital entrepreneurship hubs in key cities and towns in India. Our aim is to build a platform for young Indians who want to create businesses of the future,” Ambani said. In the coming months, Ambani said that the company plans to introduce apps around education, health, rural livelihood, agriculture and many more categories because “we truly believe it is time for digital life to reach the remotest corners of India.” With that aim in mind, Reliance Jio will also start rolling out fibre-to-home wireline network in select cities, and is also looking at extending its optical fibre network to enterprise locations.

“We intend to provide multi-gigabit per second enterprise-grade wireline data connections that are on par with those in the developed world. Jio is also partnering with some of the leading digital and Internet players in the world,” Ambani said.

He added that together with Jio, these partners are keen to showcase the full power and range of their offerings to Indian customers. “In many cases, we are working jointly to create first-of-its-kind solutions that are unique to the Indian market,” he added. Ambani also talked e-commerce that he described as an ‘exciting new area’, and Jio will be closely working with Reliance Retail.