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With the current round, Ola’s total funds raised till date has crossed US$1.3 billion, of which over US$1.2 billion came in over the past year alone
Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder & CEO, Ola
India’s leading taxi and auto-rickshaw booking app Ola has raised US$500 million in its Series F round of funding, led by UK-based investment firm Baillie Gifford. Existing investors, including Falcon Edge Capital, Tiger Global, SoftBank Group, and DST Global, besides Chinese mobile transportation giant Didi Kuaidi, also participated.
The latest round of funding will be used to fuel the firm’s growth across existing categories, as well as to innovate mobility solutions for the local market, according to an official statement.
With the current round, Ola’s total funding raised till date has crossed US$1.3 billion, of which over US$1.2 billion came in over the past year alone.
In September this year, Didi Kuaidi had announced its investment in Ola.
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Ola, which mainly competes with global giant Uber, has been rapidly expanding its services across the mobility space, as . Uber has been upping the ante in India to take on the local player by launching similar services, including auto-rickshaw hailing service.
After offering taxi and rickshaw-hailing services through its app, Ola has also plans to soon launch car pooling service Ola Share, which is at the beta stage in Bangalore, and shuttle services, which are in the pilot stage in Gurgaon.
Uber is also testing its carpooling services in Indian cities.
Apart from providing transport services through its Ola, the Bangalore-based startup recently launched a separate e-wallet app ‘Ola Money’ marking its entry into the standalone mobile wallet space.
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After the acquisition of smaller rival TaxiForSure, which operates as a separate service, Ola most-recently acquired trip-planning applications company Geotagg for an undisclosed amount.
In April 2015, Ola raised US$400 million of funding led by DST Global in Series E, preceded by US$210 million led by SoftBank Group as part of its Series D round in October 2014.
Ola’s other existing investors include Matrix Partners, Steadview Capital, Sequoia India, and Accel Partners US.
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“We will continue to build for the local market through innovative solutions like Ola Share, Ola Prime and Ola Money, as we grow the mobile ecosystem in India,” said Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder & CEO, Ola.
Founded in 2011 by Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, Ola claims to have grown 30 times in the last year to clock around a million booking requests a day now.
The post Uber’s Indian rival Ola bags US$500M from Baillie Gifford, Didi Kuaidi, others appeared first on e27.
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