Home grown taxi aggregator Ola, which has raised $1.2 billion from various investors so far, is looking to raise additional funds for its expansion and ward off growing competition.
Its primary rival Uber had raised $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund earlier this month of which a substantial portion is likely to be invested in India.
Ola has been in the market for a couple of months now to raise fresh funds and has been in talks with various investors, though nothing has been finalised. Sources indicate that Ola has been looking to raise in the range of $500 million.
However, the company declined to comment on the story.
Ola, which has about 3.5 lakh cab and 1 lakh autos on its platform, is looking to double the cabs on its platform by end of this fiscal.
On Monday, Chinese car-hailing app Didi Chuxing which is also an investor in Ola had said it received an investment of about $600 million from China Life Insurance Co, boosting resources to fund its battle with Uber. That was just a month after Uber raised $1 billion from Apple.
Uber Technologies, which had raised $3.5 billion from the Saudi Arabian Fund during the first week of June, had stated that it is likely to invest a substantial portion of this fund in Indian operations.
“This investment is part of global fund and we are incredibly excited to use this capital in our globally strategic markets like India.
“Having grown exponentially over the last two years, we are bullish on the Indian market and this investment will support the remarkable growth of Uber in India,” an Uber spokesperson had said.
Uber, in July last year, had announced an investment of $1 billion in India to expand its services and it also setup a response and support centre in Hyderabad.