Ola, an India-based taxi hailing service backed by telecommunications and internet company SoftBank, has extended its series E round from $315m to $400m, TechCrunch reported yesterday.
GIC, the sovereign wealth fund of Singapore, and equity hedge fund Falcon Edge Capital provided the additional funding. DST Global led the series E round, having invested $207m, while Tiger Global, Steadview Capital, Accel Partners and ABG Capital also participated.
The round values the company at $2.5bn, and follows a $210m series D investment by SoftBank in October 2014 at a $1bn valuation.
Ola has now secured $675m in total funding, with its previous investors including Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital and Steadview, as well as Kunal Bahr, founder of e-commerce company Snapdeal, and Yuri Milner, founder of DST Global.
Ola will use the funding to grow to 200 cities across India by the end of the year, focusing particularly on smaller markets. It has been expanding rapidly from 10 cities a year ago to 100 cities today.
The company acquired competitor TaxiForSure for $200m in March 2015, and will put $100m of the series E funding towards growing that business. Ola’s Indian market share already puts it squarely ahead of its rival Uber, which only operates in 11 cities in the country.