Glance, which serves media content, news, and casual games on Android handsets’ lockscreens, has received a $200 million investment from Jio Platforms, the latest in a series of bets from Mukesh Ambani’s empire as it looks to expand its offering to more than 420 million telecom subscribers in the South Asian market. Jio Platforms’ parent company, Reliance Industries, is led by Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, and stated its investment is part of the InMobi Group subsidiary’s Series D fundraising round. According to a source familiar with the subject, the fresh investment puts Google-backed Glance at around $1.7 billion.
Glance, which was founded in 2019, comes pre-installed on various major smartphone models and has a “presence” of 400 million people, according to the company. According to a top Glance official with direct knowledge of the situation, a significant section of the user base removes Glance within the first week of purchasing the cellphones, and in many cases, retail store owners delete Glance themselves.
Glance has partnerships with almost every major Android smartphone manufacturer in Asia, including Xiaomi and Samsung, India’s two largest smartphone manufacturers. As part of the agreement, the company will bring its technology to the JioPhone Next smartphones, according to the two companies. The JioPhone Next, which runs a substantially optimized Android operating system and costs around $87, is the result of a collaboration between Google and Jio.
“This is the latest in a long line of strategic relationships between Glance and major mobile ecosystem stakeholders. “Further strategic collaborations between Glance, Reliance Retail, and Jio across devices, commerce, content, and the gaming ecosystem are expected as a result of this agreement,” the companies stated in a joint statement. Glance is to use the new funds to expand in a number of significant foreign countries outside of Asia, according to Jio. The United States, Brazil, Mexico, and Russia are among these markets. It also intends to expand its live content catalog and commerce environment, both of which it hopes to bring to users’ lockscreens, according to the companies.
InMobi Group founder and CEO Naveen Tewari stated in a statement, “Mr. Mukesh Ambani has been a source of enormous inspiration for me since my early days, and it is an honor to have Jio become a key partner in our path.” “Jio’s commitment in Glance reflects a profound philosophical and visionary alignment. Jio is a firm that is actually disrupting the market. It made the internet available to millions of people, making India one of the world’s largest internet markets. With the launch of its JioPhone Next devices, Reliance is now challenging the smartphone market. Jio’s investment in Glance, as well as the prominence of Glance on the lock screen of JioPhone Next devices, would result in a fundamental shift in how its consumers interact with the internet.”
