Ola, India’s ride-hailing company, has raised US$2 billion in a fresh round of funding from a group of investors, including SoftBank, Tencent, a venture capital fund jointly run by Indian industrialist Ratan Tata, the University of California’s investment arm and U.S. institutional investors, Bloomberg reports, citing an anonymous source.
The funding round isn’t finished yet and the amount could change, Bloomberg says, citing the same source.
In another report today, The Economic Times reports that Chinese internet giant Tencent has finalised its $400-million investment in Ola which has valued the startup at over $3.8 billion. The paperwork for the transaction has been finalised and the deal is awaiting approval from CCI, according to two sources familiar with the matter, says The Economic Times.
The deal will help Ola to continue its fight with Uber in India where it holds an upper hand compared to US ride-hailing giant. Ola has also been looking into regional expansion. As we reported earlier, Ola is planning to launch operations in Dhaka by the fourth quarter of this year.
Investors across the world have been pouring billions of dollars into ride-hailing and transportation companies across the world.
This year alone, we have seen Didi Chuxing of China raise $5.5 billion to fuel its global expansion and Indonesia’s Go-Jek a $1.2 billion to fight Uber and Grab.
Mobility has become one of most talked about industries. With the emergence of electric vehicles led by Tesla, and self-driving car led by Google, Uber, Tesla, Lift Didi and in fact Apple, the future of transportation is a real hot topic.
Car manufacturers including GM are also investing heavily in the space.
Asia has seen some of biggest mobility startups including Grab, GO-Jek, Ola, Didi, Easy Taxi (southeast Asia), Meru Cab, Jagnoo, Shuttl, Careem (Middle East) and a host of other smaller players.
(this report reproduced part of the narrative from one of our previous reports on Pathao)
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