Ola (formerly Olacabs), on Thursday announced raising $400 mn in its Series E round of funding led by DST Global with participation from GIC, Falcon Edge Capital and existing investors SoftBank Group, Tiger Global, Steadview Capital and Accel Partners US. From this amount, Ola has earmarked $100 mn towards fueling expansion & growth of TaxiForSure
Ola has expanded to 100 cities in the current year from 10 cities a year ago across personal transportation like cabs, taxis and auto-rickshaws. This growth has been further accelerated with the acquisition of TaxiForSure in March 2015. After seeing growth in tier 2 & 3 cities owing to very limited transportation options, the additional investment will allow the company to go deeper into smaller cities.
Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder & CEO, Ola said, “DST Global, GIC and Falcon Edge have been partners in some of the leading Internet success stories globally and we are excited about having them onboard. Our vision is that people shouldn’t find the need to own a car. And we have been able to make this possible for millions of customers in the past four years and creating over a hundred thousand driver entrepreneurs on the platform.”
While the spread of categories like Ola Mini, Sedan, Prime, Auto-rickshaws and Taxis have quickly evolved over the past year, Ola aims to further localise its offerings for the benefit of citizens and driver partners in every market. With this aim, Ola plans to be in 200 cities by the end of this year.
Rahul Mehta, Managing Partner, DST Global said, “Ola offers a strong value proposition for both users and drivers and is transforming personal transportation in India. We’re excited by their impressive growth and the potential to expand the platform into other categories and look forward to continue working with their visionary founders and management.”
Driver partners on the Ola benefit from better-structured financing options offered by banks and financial institutions as well as significant discounts from car manufacturers. Through ‘Ola Pragati’ in partnership with the State Bank of India, drivers can now avail of a daily loan repayment facility and a lower down payment to buy a car of their choice. Ola aims to offer this program to over 100,000 driver entrepreneurs across India within the next 2 years.
Ola has raised earlier rounds of funding from Tiger Global, Matrix Partners India, Steadview Capital and Sequoia Capital. SoftBank Group led the most recent Series D round of $210mn, in October 2014.
For Updates Check Company News; follow us on Facebook and Twitter