Taxi aggregator Ola has raised $500 million (around Rs 3,299 crore) from Baillie Gifford, Tiger Global, SoftBank Group and others to fuel capacity building and drive new use cases as it up the ante to compete with rivals like US-based Uber and homegrown Meru. Ola has closed the Series F funding, raising $500 million from Baillie Gifford, China’s Didi Kuaidi and existing investors, including Falcon Edge Capital, Tiger Global, SoftBank Group and DST Global.
“We will use these funds to further accelerate growth. 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 co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said. He said the company has grown by over 30 times in the last one year with over one million booking requests a day. According to sources, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC also participated in the latest round of funding that values the company at about $5 billion.
With the current round, Ola has closed over $1.3 billion of external funding, of which over $1.2 billion has been raised over the past year. In April, Ola had raised $400 million in funding, led by DST Global (in Series E) and prior to that, $210 million led by SoftBank Group (Series D in October 2014). Ola counts SoftBank Group, Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, Steadview Capital, Sequoia India, Accel Partners US and Falcon Edge also among its existing investors.
With over 3,50,000 vehicles registered on its platform, Ola offers services across 102 cities in India. The investment will also allow Ola to raise its presence in smaller cities, which often has limited
transport options.