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Ola, mobile app for personal transportation has raised $500 Mn in its Series F funding round. Baillie Gifford, Falcon Edge Capital, Tiger Global, SoftBank Group, DST Global and Didi Kuaidi participated in this round of funding.
With the current round, Ola has closed over $1.3 Bn of external funding, of which over $1.2 Bn has been raised over the past year. In April 2015, Ola raised $400 Mn of funding led by DST Global in Series E and prior to that, $210 Mn from SoftBank Group as part of its Series D round in October 2014. Ola counts Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, Steadview Capital, Sequoia India, Accel Partners US and Falcon Edge also amongst its existing investors.
The funds will be deployed to further accelerate its growth in the Indian market with a focus on building mobility for a billion people.
As per the company, it has grown by over 30 times in the last one year, now clocking over 1 Mn booking requests a day. It has over 350,000 vehicles registered on its platform from across 102 cities in India.
Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder & CEO, Ola said
As we pursue our mission to build mobility for a billion people, we are excited about bringing onboard partners who can help us get there faster. We will continue to build for the local market through innovative solutions like Ola Share, Ola Prime and Ola Money, as we grow the mobile ecosystem in India.
Ola’s mobile apps, accounted for a presence in smartphones of 78% cab users in India according to recent mobile intelligence reports. The company has introduced a wide range of personal transportation options to serve millions of customers across the country, even in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. This includes Kaali-Peeli taxis in Mumbai, Auto-rickshaws in 6 cities, Yellow Taxis in Kolkata and Ola Share (beta) in Bangalore, a first of its kind social ride-sharing option for users within their groups of choice.
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