Ride-Hailing App Ola Prepares For $500M IPO

Ola, the Indian ride-hailing startup and one of Uber’s chief rivals, announced Friday it is raising $500 million ahead of an initial public offering.

According to Bloomberg News, the money will come from investors that include Temasek Holdings Pte and an affiliate of Warburg Pincus LLC, and will comprise one of the largest investments in India’s consumer internet sector.

Ola says it plans to expand across different regions and into different categories and has not yet decided the timing of the IPO, a company spokesperson told Bloomberg.

“India’s consumer internet companies are growing at a rapid clip, captivating global investors who are pouring billions of dollars into startups big and small,” the Bloomberg report says. “While ride-hailing has been hit by the pandemic, Ola said its business has rebounded as restrictions have eased.”

Based in Bangalore, Ola was founded by chairman and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal and his classmate Ankit Bhati, both veterans of the Indian Institute of Technology.

In addition to India, Ola also offers rides in Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. As PYMNTS reported last year, Ola launched in London at a time Uber was in danger of being banned.

The company worked with DriveTech to improve its drivers’ skills, requiring each driver to take a risk assessment and complete eLearing modules before getting a permit. In addition, each Ola driver in London had to pass a Versant spoken English test from Pearson and complete a custom service exam administered by Mercer.

The Bloomberg story notes that Aggarwal’s other startup, Ola Electric Mobility Pvt, is preparing to launch an electric scooter at the company’s factory near Bangalore, the largest facility of its kind in the world. Ola Electric had initially planned to have the first scooters finished in June, but the harsh second wave of the COVID pandemic in recent months has pushed those plans back by weeks.