Flipkart founder Sachin Bansal takes a $21 million ride in Ola

Ola 1

Sachin Bansal has invested Rs 150 crore in ride hailing firm Ola, a week after it raised $74 million from existing investor Steadview Capital, according to documents filed with the Registrar of Companies (ROC) sourced from data intelligence firm PaperVC.

The fund infusion has come in as part of the ongoing Series J round.

Bansal, who is also setting up a $1 billion fund, has invested here in his individual capacity.

ANI Technologies Pvt, which owns and operates Ola, is allotting 70,588 fully and compulsorily cumulative Series J preference shares having a face value of Rs 10 at a subscription price of Rs 21,240 to Bansal. According to a source privy to the development, this money is part of a larger round size of Rs 650 crore which is to come from Bansal. However RoC has not been updated with the other documents as yet.

Ola last announced a fund-raise of $1.1 billion from China’s Tencent Holdings and existing investor SoftBank Group in October last year and said it was in talks to raise another $1 billion.

This latest fund raise is expected to be a part of the $1 billion, the company has been trying to raise. Last year, it 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.

This is likely to be one the biggest bets of Bansal, who has invested in dozen other Indian companies so far. The development comes at a time when Ola is aggressively competing with the global rival Uber in India.

At the same time, the company has also expanded to overseas markets.

Six months after foraying into Australia, Ola launched its operations in the United Kingdom in September 2018.

In India, Ola operates across over 100 cities. In Australia, it has set-up operations in seven cities. It claims to have registered 40,000 drivers on its app in Australia.

The company is also focusing on non-core 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.