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Update: Ola, today has confirmed that it has raised its Series E round of funding of $400 Mn led by DST Global with participation from GIC, Falcon Edge Capital and existing investors SoftBank Group, Tiger Global, Steadview Capital and Accel Partners US. Ola has expanded to 100 cities in the current year from 10 cities a year ago, revolutionizing personal transportation across cabs, taxis and auto-rickshaws.
Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder & CEO, Ola said, “DST Global, GIC and Falcon Edge have been partners in some of the leading Internet success stories globally and we are excited about having them onboard. Our vision is that people shouldn’t find the need to own a car. And we have been able to make this possible for millions of customers in the past four years and creating over a hundred thousand driver entrepreneurs on the platform. With increasing smartphone penetration and immense growth in smaller cities and towns, we will be able to drive the benefits of this on-demand platform deeper into the lives of our customers and partners.”
Rahul Mehta, Managing Partner, DST Global said, “Ola offers a strong value proposition for both users and drivers and is transforming personal transportation in India. We’re excited by their impressive growth and the potential to expand the platform into other categories and look forward to continue working with their visionary founders and management.”
Avnish Bajaj, Co-founder & Managing Director, Matrix India added, “The Ola journey has been phenomenal and is a unique occurrence in the lifecycle of investment firms! We are privileged to be Bhavish and Ankit’s early partner and to have witnessed execution to their grand vision and scale. This investment by DST Global, GIC and Falcon Edge supported by existing investors, sets the Company up for future growth and we welcome them to the partnership.”
Before:
Russian Venture Capitalist Yuri Milner’s DST Global has finally invested over $200 Mn in ANI Technologies Private Limited, the owner of Ola. Ola had issued Series G of Preference Shares to various funds within the DST Global umbrella, last week. Its existing investors also participated in this round of funding. (hat tip)
One of the Ola investor has confirmed this round of funding and further told Inc42 that this is Ola’s Series E round of funding. Ola has raised over $315 Mn in this Series E round, besides, DST, Tiger Global, Steadview, Accel Partners, ABG Capital, Mauritius Investments Ltd. and Rahul Mehta also participated in the round.
Checkout the complete details:
News of Yuri Milner’s investment firm DST Global likely to invest about $400-500 Mn Ola in a new round at a valuation of $2.5 Bn was making rounds in the media from a past few days.
Ola was founded in 2011 by IIT Bombay graduates Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhat. Last year, Ola had received $210 Mn funding led by Steadview Capital and VC firm Sequoia Capital, with its existing investors Matrix Partner India and Tiger Global also participating. Prior to this, it had raised $41.8 Mn in Series C, about $20 Mn in Series B and over $3.2 Mn.
The company has over 100,000 drivers on its platform across 85+ cities.
Ola has even started introducing new services in different domains as well, being a market leader in cab booking space in the country, with a number of investors backing it up, provides Ola an ease of experimenting. The company had launched food delivery service, OlaCafe in 4 cities i.e. Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore, last month. Last year, it started with auto booking facility for its customers and just few days back it enabled cashless rides through its In-app Ola Money Wallet.
Interestingly, Uber is also planning to launch auto booking service soon starting with Bangalore. With this, Times Internet has recently, entered into a strategic partnership with Uber, which is said to be an INR 150 Cr. deal.
Ola had also acquired TaxiForSure for $200 Mn in a cash and equity deal earlier in March.
Ola competes with other cab booking services including, Meru, Uber, Taxipixi among others.
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