India: Uber’s rival Ola gets US$1.1b funding from Tencent, SoftBank

Uber has many rivals in different countries worldwide, but the two biggest ones are Didi Chuxing from China and Ola from India, and they are steadily gaining ground. In the latest development, Ola has secured US$1.1 billion in funding from Chinese investment company Tencent and Japanese finance giant SoftBank.

The ride-hailing service, Ola, revealed to CNBC on Monday, October 9, that it was in talks with other investors to raise another US$1 billion. “The transportation and mobility industries are seeing huge changes globally. Our ambition is to build a globally competitive and futuristic transportation system in India that will support and accelerate a nation on the move. Our new partners share our passion for building the future of transportation in India together and we look forward to learn and benefit from their global perspectives and ecosystems,” Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder and chief executive officer of Ola, told CNBC’s Money Control.

Ola now has a valuation of US$7 billion, according to the CNBC report that also underlined the US investors would be participating in the second part of the funding round. This might not exactly be reassuring for Uber, which said in 2015 it considered India an important market and was going to invest US$1 billion in the country in the coming years.

Ola took off after Uber stepped foot in India in 2013, but since then has expanded the model. It even offers motorbikes and rickshaws for hire in the country, which is considered the world’s biggest developing market for such services. Ola is now present in 110 cities in the country.

Full Content: CNBC

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