India's Reliance acquires majority stake in skyTran

The Indian conglomerate has doubled its holding in a futuristic transportation company.India's Reliance has upped its stake in skyTran, a US firm developing self-driving "pods" that would travel on a network of specially built tracks. Reliance Strategic Business Ventures (RSBVL), a part of the Reliance Industries conglomerate, has doubled its holding in skyTran to 54.46% for a $26.76 million fee. "Our acquiring majority equity stake in skyTran reflects our commitment to invest in building futuristic technologies that would transform the world," said Mukesh Ambani, Reliance's billionaire chairman and managing director, in a statement. "We are excited by skyTran's potential to achieve an order of magnitude impact on highspeed intra and inter-city connectivity and its ability to provide a high speed, highly efficient and economical 'Transportation-As-A-Service' platform for India and the rest of the world." Other investors in skyTran include Innovation Endeavors and OurCrowd. Aimed at addressing the problem of traffic congestion, skyTran makes what it calls Personal Rapid Transport (PRT) vehicles or "pod taxis." They use its proprietary "maglev" technology, which the company claims is environmentally friendly and produces zero emissions. The takeover pits Reliance directly against Elon Musk's The Boring Company, which has a similar "HyperLoop" offering for low-cost and super-fast transportation. However, while skyTran focuses on intra-city travel, Hyperloop's goal is to reduce the time taken to travel between two cities. Musk's Hyperloop already has three ongoing projects in India: the world's first commercial Hyperloop corridor between Mumbai and Pune, a link from Bengaluru city to Bengaluru Airport and another one that connects Delhi to Chandigarh. There has also been speculation that Musk is planning to set up a huge factory in India. He has taken a keen interest in the country and his StarLink satellite business recently set up an office in Bengaluru. Starlink uses satellites to provide high-speed broadband services, with the aim of lowering costs and boosting connectivity in remote. Services are likely to be available in India by early next year. Related posts: — Gagandeep Kaur, contributing editor, special to Light Reading