US fund manager Vanguard Group has slashed the valuation of Indian ride-hailing startup Ola by 35%, from $7.4 billion to $4.8 billion.
This comes nearly two years after Vanguard, which holds less than 1% of a stake in Ola, trimmed the valuation of the company by 9.5% in 2021 and by 45% in 2020.
In February last year, Ola raised $20 million in its ongoing Series J round from Axis Growth Avenues AIF, and Arrow Multi-Asset Fund, reportedly at a valuation of $7.15-7.3 billion.
Ola, which has been facing intense competition from Uber, Rapido, and other local players in the Indian market, is slowly pivoting its focus to new initiatives such as electric vehicles and food delivery, which has put pressure on its financials.
In FY21, Ola reported a 63% drop in revenue to $120 million. It is yet to file FY22 results.
Despite this, the firm aims to launch an IPO in the second half of this year, founder Bhavish Aggarwal said in December.
Ola joins a list of high-flying Indian startups that have recently seen a drop in their valuations by their investors. Investors are now carefully reassessing the value of their investments due to challenging macroeconomic conditions.
Earlier this week, US-based asset manager Invesco marked down the valuation of Indian food delivery giant Swiggy’s in its holding to about $5.5 billion, down from $10.7 billion earlier.
Earlier this year, private equity firm BlackRock marked down its valuation to $11.15 billion in BYJU’s. Netherlands-headquartered technology investor Prosus had written down the value of its existing 9.67% stake in the decacorn to a mere $578 million at the end of the September quarter, thereby pegging its valuation at about $5.9 billion.