Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Retail has acquired a 54 percent stake in domestic robotics company Addverb for a total of $132 million about 983 crore, according to a senior official of the robotics firm.
Sangeet Kumar, co-founder and CEO of Addverb Technologies, told PTI that the company will continue to operate independently and that it will use the funds received from Reliance to expand business overseas as well as set up one of the biggest robotic manufacturing facilities in Noida. The company has a manufacturing plant in Noida, where it produces around 10,000 robots per annum. With this investment, Reliance will hold around 54 per cent of the stake in Addverb. They are the largest shareholder in the company. Reliance was already one of their valued clients, with whom we had co-created and delivered highly automated warehouses for their Jio-Mart grocery business. The trust factor and the comfort level were already in place, which led to this association, Kumar said.
He said that he believes that the strategic partnership with Reliance Retail will help us leverage 5 G, battery technology through new energy initiatives, advances in material sciences and carbon fibre to deliver more advanced and affordable robots.
We are a profitable company.'' We will use the funds for overseas expansion and expanding manufacturing facilities.
At present, 80 percent of our revenue comes from India, but this mix is expected to change to 50-50 between India and overseas business in the next 4 -- 5 years. The software revenues contribute 15 percent of the total, which is expected to grow significantly, Kumar noted. Addverb expects to close the current financial year with a 100 per cent growth in revenue at Rs 400 crore compared to Rs 200 crore a year ago.
In the next 5 -- 6 years, we want to be a billion-dollar company in revenue. Kumar said that we do everything in India - design, manufacture and deliver across the world. Addverb has four subsidiaries in Singapore, the Netherland, the US and Australia. Each of these subsidiaries will expand their workforce. The manufacturing will take place in India, and our overseas subsidiary will help in designing the robots, Kumar said.