Flipkart founder Sachin Bansal invests Rs150 cr in Ola
15 Jan 2019
Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal has invested Rs150 crore in ride hailing firm Ola to acquire 70,588 fully and compulsorily cumulative Series J preference shares having a face value of Rs10 at a subscription price of Rs21,240.
The fund infusion, which is part of the ongoing Series J round, comes a week after Ola raised $74 million from existing investor Steadview Capital, according to data sourced by intelligence firm PaperVC from documents filed with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).
Bansal, who left Flipkart after its acquisition by US retail major Walmart, has invested in Ola in his individual capacity. He is also in the process of setting up a $1 billion investment fund.
Reports said the Rs150-crore injection is part of a Rs650-crore investment by Bansal.
ANI Technologies Pvt, which owns and operates Ola had, in October last year, raised $1.1 billion from China’s Tencent Holdings and existing investor SoftBank Group.
This latest fund raise is part of another $1 billion investment the company has been planning. Ola had also added $50 million of funding from Hong Kong-based private equity firm Sailing Capital and China-Eurasian Economic Cooperation Fund, a Chinese state-backed investment fund, in 2018.
While Sachin Bansal has invested in several Indian companies, his investment in Ola is likely to be one the biggest so far.
Ola, which is aggressively competing with the global rival Uber, has also expanded its fight to overseas markets.
Ola, which initially foraying into Australia, has since launched operations in the United Kingdom in September 2018. In Australia, it has operations in seven cities where it claims to have registered 40,000 drivers on its app.
In India, Ola operates in over 100 cities.
Ola is also investing in other business such as food and bike rides. Last month, it announced a strategic partnership with scooter-sharing firm Vogo. It plans to invest in 100,000 scooters on the Vogo platform for $100 million.
The company is also learnt to be entering into the e-pharmacy space. It is reportedly in talks with medicine delivery firm Myra for a potential acquisition. It runs its food delivery business through Foodpanda, which it acquired in 2017.