Ola acquires TaxiForSure

Ola (formerly Olacabs), India's largest taxi aggregator, has acquired rival TaxiForSure in $200 million cash and equity deal. TaxiForSure is the country's second-largest cab aggregator.

After the deal is concluded, the two operators will continue to operate as separate entities.

The deal enables Ola, which is the market leader in the personal transportation segment with over one lakh vehicles, expects to to further strengthen its capacity with TaxiForSure's operator-led model, the company said in a statement.

''TaxiForSure has a great team and they have built a very exciting business in a short time. There's a lot of complementary value in the strategy TaxiForSure has followed," said Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder and CEO of Ola.

The management and all of the 1,700 employees will continue to work with TaxiForSure, with the current chief operating officer Arvind Singhal being appointed as the chief executive officer.

Aprameya Radhakrishna and Raghunandan G, the founders of TaxiForSure, will contribute in an advisory role for a certain period. TaxiForSure is currently present in 47 cities with over 15,000 vehicles registered on its platform.

TaxiForSure has also focused heavily on the economy segment of cab users with offerings such as Tata Nanos as part of its fleet and Rs49 as base fares in the past. For customers, drivers and operators on the TaxiForSure platform, nothing will change, the release added.

"Post this acquisition, the combined entity will be strong enough and better capitalised to offer the best value to all our stakeholders, including our customers. This development ensures that industry attractiveness is preserved and the combined entity can race ahead and continue to create unprecedented value for all stakeholders," said Raghunandan G, Co-founder and CEO of TaxiForSure.

Following this acquisition, investors in TaxiForSure - Accel Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Helion Venture Partners - will roll over their stock into Ola.

Ola has been funded by Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital, Steadview Capital and most recently, Japanese telecom firm Softbank over its four rounds of fund-raising.