Another Indian Unicorn saw $2 billion fund raising on Monday. Ola- India’s ride hailing company raises $2 billion from SoftBank Group Corp and Tencent Holdings Ltd, another high profile funding in this year after Flipkart which competes with Amazon.
Although as per the Bloomberg’s report the amount is not fixed for now and can change in the process. However as per The Economic Times Tencent has finalized an investment of $400 million in Ola, valuing the company over $3.8 billion. The paperwork from both the companies has been finalized and awaits approval from CCI.
This funding will impact its rival Uber’s position in India, on the one end where it is facing licence ban in London and multiple allegations.
Other backers in the ride-hailing startup’s latest financing round included a venture capital fund jointly run by Indian industrialist Ratan Tata and the University of California’s investment arm, as well as several U.S. institutional investors, as per the sources Bloomberg.
The funds will help Ola focus in India, and build its user base and drivers. The funding round isn’t finished yet and the amount could change, the person said.
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ANI Technologies Pvt owned Ola holds an upper hand against San Francisco based Uber in the $10 billion Indian market, but Uber soon plans to close that gap by providing driver incentives and promotions.
Earlier this year, Ola also amended its Articles of Association (AoA) to require SoftBank to seek approval of Ola’s founders Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, besides the board, to increase its stake through either primary or secondary share purchases.
The Ola round, which is nearing completion, already has participation from one of SoftBank’s investment arms, SIMI Holdings Inc. It wasn’t immediately clear if SoftBank’s $93 billion Vision Fund would participate. SoftBank is also considering a multibillion-dollar investment in Uber.
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