Reliance Industries to invest $25mn in Jerusalem Innovation Incubator

New Delhi: Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) will pump in US $25 million in technology incubator – Jerusalem Innovation Incubator (JII) – that will invest in early stage startups working in the areas of artificial intelligence (AI), fintech and Internet of Things (IoT). JII, set up as a Limited Liability Partnership, will have RIL holding 20 percent interest.

“The Board of Directors has approved to set up and invest in a technology incubator by the name of JII, licensed by Israel Innovation Authority (IIA), Ministry of Economy, Israel, under competitive bidding process,” RIL said in a statement.

The investment in JII shall be done in partnership with OurCrowd (Isarel-based leading start-up crowd funding platform), Motorola Solutions (global provider of mission- critical communications and services) and Yissum (technology transfer company of Hebrew University of Jerusalem), it added.

OurCrowd will hold 60 percent stake, while Motorola will have 20 percent interest. Yissum, a non-investing partner, will collaborate with JII to provide R&D and other support.

RIL said JII shall invest in early stage startups over the licence period of eight years. “The company proposes to invest US $25 million in JII and in frontier technology startups in tranches over a period of about eight years, subject to necessary regulatory approvals,” it added.

JII’s primary areas of focus will include big data, analytics, AI, fintech, storage, IoT and and computer vision.

“The proposed investment in JII would help pool significamt amount of capital, which is essential and foundational to fund the cutting-edge innovation required by early-stage startups in partnership with IIA,” the statement said.

This will also give early access to innovation, technologies and products from Israel, which one of the world’s largest startup and technology innovation ecosystem.