Tata Sons Chairman Emeritus and industry icon Ratan Tata who has shown a penchant for investing in startups in the past two years, has now cherry picked taxi hailing service Ola, which has quickly established itself as the leader in that sgement.
Tata has made this investment in his personal capacity. The amount invested remained undisclosed.
“It is our honor to have Mr. Ratan Tata on board as an investor. This is a huge endorsement from one of the most respected business leaders of our times and reflects Ola’s commitment towards the future of mobility in India. We look forward to learning from Mr. Tata’s experience that will help us build a world class organization from India,” said Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder, Ola.
This round of investment, comes within three months after the company raised $400 million from DST Global.
Tata has shown interest in the fast growing consumer internet sector in India and has personally invested in a few of them as a strategic investment. His interest in technology companies is evident by the choices he has made. Out of the10 companies since 2014 where Tata invested, six were technology start-ups (see box).
Tata’s past investments show he is betting on the biggest players in each of the consumer internet verticals. In the e-commerce space, he placed his bet on one of the largest players Snapdeal by investing undisclosed amount in 2014. Snapdeal had raised $627 million in 2014 from Japan’s SoftBank, one of the largest investments in the Indian technology company. In the same year he invested in two other e-commerce companies—Bluestone and Urban Ladder—leading players in their sector, thereby showing his faith in the industry.
Apart from money, the “Tata” brand name and his presence on the board helps founders in taking company decisions. In an earlier statement, Vijay Sharma, CEO, Paytm, said, “I am very happy that Mr Tata has put faith and trust in our values and mission. There is no better advisor for Paytm on building India’s most trusted mobile payment and commerce platform.”
In March, Tata invested undisclosed amount in the online payments start-up Paytm, again, one of the leaders in the payment vertical. The company has expanded into online retail, directly competing with Snapdeal. This is Tata’s fourth investment this year in Indian technology start-ups. In February this year he put his money in an automotive portal CarDekho, an early-stage start-up.
Rata Tata investments in his personal capacity
August 2014: Snapdeal
September 2014: Bluestone
November 2014: Urban Ladder
December 2014: Swasth India
February 2015: CarDekho
March 2015: Grameen Capital
March 2015: One97 Communications (Paytm)
April 2015: Xiaomi
June 2015: Kaaryah
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