Ola is India's most popular mobile application for booking your cab, changing the way you travel in

your city, forever! Ola brings together cab drivers and customers using technology to make
transportation hassle free for everyone.
Ola has undertaken 8 rounds of Equity funding amounting to $1.23 billion from 20 investors
worldwide.
Date

Amount / Round

Dec, 2015

$57.3M / Series G

Nov, 2015

$500M / Series F

Apr, 2015

Valuation

Lead Investor

Investors

Vanguard

$4.5 B (Pre)

Baillie Gifford

$400M / Series E

$2.1 B (Pre)

DST Global

Oct, 2014

$210M / Series D

$790 M (Pre)

SoftBank Capital

Jul, 2014

250 Cr / Series C

1000 Cr (Pre)

Sequoia Capital
Steadview Capital

Nov, 2013

$20M / Series B

Apr, 2012

$5M / Series A

Tiger Global
Management

Apr, 2011

$330k / Angel

Ola has also been part of 3 acquisitions to support them in their expansion plans.
Date

Acquired

Amount

Mar 21, 2016

Qarth

Unknown

Nov 11, 2015

Geotagg

Unknown

Mar 2, 2015

TaxiForSure.com

$200M in Cash & Stock

Series D
This series funding was the largest single round funding by Ola so far. It saw
SoftBank Corp. taking the lead with existing investors Tiger Global, Matrix
Partners and Steadview Capital also participating. The year 2014 saw the onset
of Information Revolution. Many cab aggregators were moving to the online
platform and thus needed expertise in the technical domain. The investment led
by SoftBank with its global network brings in relevant experience and knowledge
in this domain. Series D funding comes at an opportune moment as Ola had
rolled out its Ola-Mini to take on UberX in the market. The low price offering saw
a high cash burn ratio in terms of marketing, promo offers etc. At that point time
Ola had presence only in 19 cities with about 33,000 cabs. The funding
supported them in expanding their operations to newer cities and simultaneous
scaling up in existing ones, thus setting an ambitious target of 100 cities by the
end of 2015. The possibility that the strategic partnership with SoftBank Corp.
played a pivotal role in Ola coming with Ola Money cant be ruled out. The Ola
app also saw myriad of features being added such as tracking, online payment

etc. Perhaps the funding received provided a stimulus to undertake technological

changes with the support of SoftBank. The end of 2014 saw both Uber and Ola
competing to buy Taxi-For-Sure. The fact that Ola was able to able to secure
funding at the end of the year might have been what made the $200 million deal
with Taxi-For-Sure in March a success.
What could have been different?
1. Had SoftBank Corp. not seen a possibility of huge of huge development in this
industry, perhaps the quantum of funding raised wouldve been less. This could
have impacted Olas scaling and expansion plans. The cab partners on-boarded
wouldve been limited as the incentives provided perhaps were limited. The
collaboration with local taxi services such as Kaali-Peeli taxis of Mumbai would
have been tough and thus wouldve lost the opportunity to be part of a rapidly
growing industry.
2. This funding couldve also seen the owners diluting their share to large extent
in the wake of talks of buying Taxi-For-Sure for which $200 million were needed.
This couldve resulted in a major investor taking over the reigns as in the case of
Flipkart.
3. The funding helped Ola to hire better at all levels. This is evident form the
plethora of technological changes and marketing activities undertaken by them.
A huge round of funding reinforces the fact that there is potential in this sector
and everyone thus wanted to be a part of it.
Sources
https://inc42.com/buzz/olacabs-series-d/
https://techcrunch.com/2014/10/27/olacabs-softbank-india/
http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/ola-raises-210-mn-in-series-d-funding-led-bysoftbank-114102800325_1.html