Reliance Industries has acquired a 54 per cent stake in Addverb Technologies, a robotics startup for $132 million (over Rs 980 crore) as it seeks to bank on automation in its e-commerce venture.

Addverb said this round of funding will accelerate its expansion in Europe and the US and enable it to set-up the largest robotic manufacturing facility in Noida.

It claimed that the unit, which will be completely automated, will propel India as a world leader in the robotic sector.

The company also plans to start an innovation lab with bases in Europe, the US and India to solve complex problems in the field of human-robotic collaboration. It already has a manufacturing unit at Noida where around 10,000 robots are produced annually.

With the new manufacturing facility that is expected to be operational in the next fiscal, the company would have the capacity to produce 50,000 robots in a year.

Addverb Technologies provides warehouse and factory automation products powered by robotics, AI (artificial intelligence), machine learning and internet of things (IoT) among others.

The company said in a statement that it has a formed a strategic partnership with Reliance that will see the latter investing up to $132 million to become the largest shareholder.

TechM purchase

Tech Mahindra is acquiring a 100 per cent stake in Com Tec Co IT Ltd (CTC), which serves the insurance and financial services industries for Euro 310 million or over Rs 2,600 crore. It is also acquiring 25 per cent each in two insurance technology platforms — SWFT and Surance, which are funded by the same founding group as CTC.

Analysts on Tuesday gave a thumbs-up to the acquisition which includes earnouts and synergy linked payouts

The stock markets, however, reacted negatively to the announcement with the shares of Tech Mahindra falling over 3.50 per cent. On the BSE, the scrip ended at Rs 1660.65 — a drop of Rs 61 over the previous close.