India’s largest cab aggregator Ola is continuing its fundraising momentum. The company has now added additional $50 million to its coffers, raised from US-based hedge fund Tekne Capital Management.
As per the sources, the New York-based investment firm has infused around $50 million in the company as part of its ongoing round, which has also seen participation from Ratan Tata’s venture fund RNT Capital Advisors and US hedge fund Falcon Edge.
Another source aware of the matter said that the company is still continuing its investment talks for the current funding round with various investors, including Coatue Management among others.
Tekne Capital is a technology-focused hedge fund founded by Beeneet Kothari. With this new funding, the company’s valuation will rise to about $3.65 billion.
New funding comes to the company after it decided to raise capital at a lower valuation of $3 billion, from $4.5-5 billion in 2015. Last year, the company raised funding from SoftBank at a valuation of $3 billion. This was the first down round for the company.
Ola is also diverting its focus towards electric cars. Recently, SoftBank’s chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son promised to gift around 1 million electric vehicles to Ola over the next five odd years.
With troubles rising within Uber, Ola has now started gaining market share in India. Industry estimates place the India taxi aggregation market share of Ola at around 65%, with Uber holding the rest.
The increasing interest in Ola comes at a time when its rival Uber has been embroiled in a series of cultural issues, which have already led to changes in its top management. Recently, the company fired its Asia business Eric Alexander for obtaining medical report of a woman who was raped by an Uber driver in Delhi. Uber’s board has also considered a leave of absence for CEO Travis Kalanick.
While both companies have often faced issues with state governments, they’ve got a positive response in Tamil Nadu for setting up kiosks at Chennai Metro Rail stations.
Ola has raised more than $1.5 billion to date from a clutch of investors, including the likes of SoftBank Group, Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, Steadview Capital, Sequoia India, Accel Partners US and Falcon Edge. Ola has the edge in the market so far, with a stipulated 65 percent market share and a presence in over 110 cities.
