Thursday, November 21

Tag: taxi booking

Ola Raises $50 Million to Compete With Uber in International Market
FUNDING

Ola Raises $50 Million to Compete With Uber in International Market

India's leading taxi aggregator Ola raises $50 million from Hong Kong-based Sailing Capital and the China-Eurasian Economic Cooperation Fund (CEECF). The SoftBank-backed company looking to battle against Uber in markets like India, the UK, and others. The latest funding round will make Ola's valuation around USD 3.7 billion and USD 4 billion. Ola, in an extraordinary general meeting held on August 31, 2018, approved the proposal to raise this amount through the issuance of 2,50,000 fully and compulsorily convertible preference shares, according to regulatory documents filed by Ola with the ministry of corporate affairs. Sailing and CEECF (state-backed investment fund of China) will together hold more than one per cent stake in Ola (run by ANI Technologies), it added. The lat...
Milestone- Uber Crosses 5 Billion Trips
News

Milestone- Uber Crosses 5 Billion Trips

Global leading Taxi aggregator platform Uber said that the ride-hailing services had completed 5 billion trips on thursday. The news comes after a string of setbacks for the privately held firm, including the resignation of Chief Executive Travis Kalanick last week and firing of the technology whiz it had hired to lead its self-driving unit, Anthony Levandowski, after he failed to comply with a court order to hand over documents at the centre of a legal dispute between Uber and Alphabet Inc’s Waymo unit. Founded in 2010, Uber said 156 trips started at the same time, helping the company cross the milestone. Uber, which has been rocked by several high-level executive departures in the past few months as it grapples with a series of controversies, has been also looking for a chief op...
Ola Hires Pranav Tiwari, Sanjay Kharb to Lead Its Engineering Operation
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Ola Hires Pranav Tiwari, Sanjay Kharb to Lead Its Engineering Operation

Transportation app Ola today said it has roped in two new executives, Pranav Tiwari and Sanjay Kharb, to strengthen its core technology leadership. Tiwari, former CTO of Cellworks, has joined Ola as Vice President of Engineering and will work towards optimising growth and profitability by bringing in necessary efficiencies in the supply chain function, Ola said in a statement. An ex-Googler, he has over 35 patents in his name. Under him, the team will focus on building solutions that effectively optimise use of vehicles on the platform, reduce deviations in routes and improve customer-driver matching. Kharb, who was earlier VP Production Engineering at InMobi, has joined as Vice President of Engineering Infrastructure and will strengthen efficiencies in Ola's technology infrastruct...
Innovation Helped us Hold Over 3/4th Market Share: Ola COO Pranay Jivrajka
Entrepreneurs Talk

Innovation Helped us Hold Over 3/4th Market Share: Ola COO Pranay Jivrajka

Transport aggregator Ola today said its India-focussed innovations like offline booking and local language apps have helped the homegrown company "effectively hold onto over three-fourth market share". The SoftBank-backed firm, which is locked in an intense battle with US-based Uber, also claimed that every bit of technology it has built has been "made from the ground up without any premise to use as a base". "When they (Uber) launched in India in 2013, Ola hardly had a first mover advantage as we were doing just about 2,000 bookings a day. In spite of this, we have continued to build on our innovations effectively holding onto over three-fourth of the market-share," Ola COO Pranay Jivrajka told Pixr8. He added that the focus needs to be on localisation for building customised products f...
Taxi Aggregator Uber and Careem Suspend Services in UAE Capital
News

Taxi Aggregator Uber and Careem Suspend Services in UAE Capital

Ride-hailing companies Uber and Careem have suspended services in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, since Saturday and do not know when they can resume operations, they said on Sunday. The National, a UAE newspaper, quoted unnamed sources as saying that as many as 50 drivers for Uber and Careem had been arrested. An Abu Dhabi source familiar with the situation told Reuters some drivers had been detained over violations of regulations but did not specify how many drivers or describe the violations. “This is a temporary suspension and we will let you know of any further updates,” an Uber spokesman in Dubai said via email. He did not respond to questions about the arrests or the reason for the suspension of services. Christian Eid, vice-president of marketing and com...