Ola’s Valuation Takes A Hit; Investor Vanguard Devalues By 40%

American investment management company, Vanguard Group has reportedly slashed the valuation of its stake in Ola, the homegrown ridesharing platform.

As per a Mint report, US-based Vanguard World Fund has marked down the value of its holding in Ola’s parent firm ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd by over 40%.

In December 2015, Vanguard had invested $50 Mn in Ola when the share value of the firm was $40,885 per share. The investment took Ola’s valuation to $4.2 Bn.

As of June 30, 2016, Vanguard – which is headquartered in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania – has managed more than $3.6 Tn in global assets. It reportedly offers more than 350 funds to more than 20 Mn investors worldwide. It is also an investor in Indian ecommerce giant Flipkart.

Ola, which integrates city transportation for customers and driver partners onto a mobile technology platform, was founded by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, in January 2011. It has a total equity funding of $1.25 Bn in from 8 rounds from 20 odd Investors such asTiger Global, DST Global, and Softbank. In November 2015, Ola raised $500 Mn in its Series F funding round at a valuation of $5 Bn.

Earlier in March 2016, Ola had faced flak as it had shut down its food-delivery service ‘Ola Cafe.’ This development came a few days after the news of shutdown of its grocery service, Ola Store.

In January 2017, Karnataka’s Transport department had also given a three-day deadline to online cab aggregators, Ola and Uber, to stop their cab-sharing services in the state. 

Ola is not the only unicorn whose valuation has been slashed down in the new year. In January 2017, Fidelity’s managed mutual fund had slashed Flipkart’s valuation by 36.1%. The company is now currently valued at $5.56 Bn.