India’s Richest Man Holds Estonia’s E-Residency

By Swati Kishore

Estonia’s Ambassador to India, Riho Kruuv, on Thursday announced that India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, Microsoft Founder Bill Gates, and India’s Union Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, all have one thing in common- they are the holders of Estonia’s e-residency.

Estonia’s e-residency facilitates the establishment of a location-independent EU company by entrepreneurs across the world. This e-residency has been offered to many prominent personalities across the world as an honorarium.

Kruuv explained how prominent personalities have accepted Estonia’s e-residency,

“Very prominent people are also Estonian e-residents. Present Minister of IT and Law and Justice honourable Ravi Shankar Prasad is an Estonian e-resident. Business tycoon Mukesh Ambani is an e-resident. Pope Francis and Bill Gates also (e-residents). This status has been given to world leaders and they have accepted it.”

Interestingly, after acquiring Estonia’s e-residency, the Mukesh Ambani-led firm, Reliance Jio has established a digital and communications subsidiary in the European nation. Kruuv elaborated,

“If you talk about Mukesh Ambani for example. The status was accorded to him with a broader perspective in mind. He has a subsidiary in Estonia. Reliance Jio is developing digital solutions for Jio digital platforms, particularly for the Indian market. They have hired the number of Estonian software developers to do the job.”

Interestingly, e-residency provides the bearer with government-issued digital identification. It gives the resident the freedom to establish and run an EU company online from anywhere across the globe. Their digital identity allows e-residents access to public e-services and the business ecosystem of the European Union.

The diplomat has also said that so far there are as much as 2,174 Estonian e-residents from India and that they have established around 275 online firms. Kruuv further said that growing economic ties between India, Estonia, and the European Union, will result in these numbers growing exponentially.

Notably, the government of the Indian state of Telangana and Estonia have signed a MoU to cooperate on the fronts of cybersecurity, Information and Communications Technologies, and Blockchain Technology.

It will be interesting to see how the partnership between Estonia and India will impact the tech ecosystem of the developing economy. Although India doesn’t have a clear stance on the state of cryptocurrencies in the nation, however, it has shown a lot of interest in the emerging technology of Blockchain.