Ola, an India-based ride hailing service backed by corporates Didi Chuxing, SoftBank and Tencent, has confirmed a $92m contribution by private investor Sachin Bansal to its series J round, TechCrunch reported today.
Bansal, a co-founder of Indian e-commerce company Flipkart that exited when retailer Walmart acquired a majority stake in August 2018, was reported last month to have invested $21m in Ola as part of a series J round then estimated to have a $780m targeted close.
TechCrunch has now placed the round’s target at more than $1bn and surmised a $6bn valuation, up from previous estimates of $5.7bn. Its size currently stands at approximately $230m.
Lyon Assets and J3T Ventures backed a $15.3m tranche for the round earlier this month together with individual investors Raymond Cahnman, Tina Price and Steven Price.
Steadview Capital had supplied $74m last month, after $50m from Sailing Capital and China-Eurasian Economic Cooperation Fund in September 2018.
Founded in 2010 as OlaCabs, Ola has developed a ride hailing app enabling users to book journeys with private drivers or traditional, metered taxis. It initially concentrated on India but has since expanded into the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
Ola has also developed its own mobile payment service and a credit platform, Ola Money Postpaid, which allows users to accumulate up to a fortnight of ride charges before paying, without any additional charges.
The company has also moved into food deliveries, acquiring the Indian operations of online food ordering platform Foodpanda in 2017.
Ola has raised approximately $2.6bn to date. Internet group Tencent led a $1.1bn funding round for it in 2017 that included telecommunications conglomerate SoftBank as well as Falcon Edge Capital, RNT Capital Advisors and Tekne Capital Management.
Didi Chuxing, a ride hailing provider headquartered in China, contributed to a $500m series F round in 2015 alongside SoftBank, Baillie Gifford, Falcon Edge, Tiger Global Management and DST Global.
Ola’s shareholders also include Accel, Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital, JS Capital, Parkwood Bespin, ABG Capital, Fii Ltr Focus Fund and Vanguard Group.
Bansal will not take an advisory role at Ola nor will he be involved in operations. He said: “Ola is one of India’s most promising consumer businesses, that is creating deep impact and lasting value for the ecosystem.
“On one hand, they have emerged as a global force in the mobility space and on the other, they continue to build deeper for various needs of a billion Indians through their platform, becoming a trusted household name today.”
