Ola closed over $1.3bn funding with another $500mn in series F

BANGALORE, INDIA: Ola garnered $500 million in its Series F funding round from Baillie Gifford, Falcon Edge Capital, Tiger Global, SoftBank Group, DST Global and Didi Kuaidi.

With the current round, Ola has closed over $1.3 bn of external funding, of which over $1.2 bn has been raised over the past year. In April 2015, Ola raised $400 mn of funding led by DST Global in Series E and prior to that, $210 mn led by SoftBank Group as part of its Series D round in October 2014. Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, Steadview Capital, Sequoia India, Accel Partners US and Falcon Edge are also amongst its existing investors.

The latest round of funding will be used towards fueling growth across existing categories as well as in innovating mobility solutions for the local market.

Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder & CEO, Ola said, “As we pursue our mission to build mobility for a billion people, we are excited about bringing onboard partners who can help us get there faster. 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.”

Ola’s mobile apps, accounted for a presence in smartphones of 78% cab users in India according to recent mobile intelligence reports. ETAs on the Ola app across categories have reduced to an average of 5 minutes across cities, claims the company.

Ola will also continue to focus on building and nurturing the ecosystem for its driver-entrepreneurs and to enable more drivers to grow as entrepreneurs themselves, in the time to come. The company has grown by over 30 times in the last one year, now clocking over 1 million booking requests a day. It has over 350,000 vehicles registered on its platform, with driver-partners across 102 cities in India.

Ola has also introduced a wide range of personal transportation options in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. This includes Kaali-Peeli taxis in Mumbai, Auto-rickshaws in 6 cities, Yellow Taxis in Kolkata and Ola Share (beta) in Bangalore, a first of its kind social ride-sharing option for users within their groups of choice.