Fri. Mar 29th, 2024
Ola Cabs

Ola, one of the leading cab-hailing service provider in India, has raised yet another funding round. This time, the company has raised Rs 231 crore from New York based hedge fund Tekne Private Ventures.

As a part of the deal, Ola will allocate 1.71 lakh fully and compulsorily convertible preference shares (1,71,173 shares) for a total consideration of Rs 231.44 crore.

Regulatory filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs reveals that the shares were allocated on 7th June earlier this year.

Ola has raised around Rs 963 crore ($150 million) in this year so far. It has raised funding from Ratan Tata’s VC firm RNT Capital Advisors, Falcon Edge, among others. Last year, in November, it had raised Rs 1,604 crore ($250 million) from SoftBank – in what is said to be a down round for the company.

The company is also said to be in talks with China-based Tencent for investment, which if successful, could result in an investment of around Rs 2,568 crore ($400 million). Several reports also suggests that Ola has also held talks with Microsoft to participate in this funding round.

Microsoft is expected to put-in around Rs 640 crore in the Bangalore-based cab hailing service provider. If the deal goes through, Ola will switch its platform from Amazon Web Services to Azure.

While Ola is raising money every now and then, it also continues to burn a large amount of sum in order to compete against its rival Uber. It has been spending a significant amount on promotions, advertising and high employee costs.

As of the company’s finances, it reported a consolidated loss of over Rs 2,311 crore, nearly Rs 6 crore a day, during the fiscal 2015-16. However, its revenues registering a stellar growth at Rs 758.23 crore during 2015-16 compared with Rs 103.77 crore in the previous fiscal.

Since its inception in the year 2010, Ola has raised around Rs 11,043 crore ($1.72 billion) in 11 funding rounds from 24 investors. The Bangalore-based startup was founded by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati with an aim to changing the way people travel in the city.

While Uber claims it is bigger than Ola, the executives and investors at Ola claims that Uber is less than half of Ola’s size. There is no conclusive way of checking either claim.

By Jeet