Indian ride-hailing company Ola is planning to raise additional $355 million (Rs 2,469.8 crore) as part of its ongoing funding round, according to the company’s filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) sourced by paper.vc.
The Bengaluru-based company is looking to raise a total of $1 billion in the Series J round, which is expected to increase its valuation to about $6 billion.
Since its launch in 2011, Ola has raised about $3.8 billion in primary capital from a number of local and global investors, according to Crunchbase. In March, South Korean automakers Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp had invested $300 million in Ola in their biggest combined investment. In February, Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal had invested Rs 650 crore ($92 million) in Ola in his personal capacity.
According to the filings, the new funding round will see Ola’s new investors including Bansal, Hyundai, and Kia being allotted 1.16 million Series J cumulative compulsorily convertible preference shares (CCCPS) at a price of Rs 21,250 per share. Post allotment, SoftBank’s stake in Ola is expected to drop to 23.3 per cent from existing 26 per cent. Meanwhile, the combined stakes of founders, Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, will grow to reach 10.88 per cent.
Ola founder Aggarwal has been shoring up his rights against the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, which is also an investor in its rival Uber. SoftBank has reportedly invested about $700 million in Ola till date. To avoid ceding control to SoftBank, Aggarwal has been wanting to bring in other investors for some time now.
In 2017, the company also amended its Articles of Association to include a clause which prevented investors from buying shares in the company without approval from the founders and board.
It was also reported last year that Singapore state investment firm Temasek had purchased a large single-digit stake in Ola for around $225 million. Temasek had also been in discussions with Ola’s management to pump in more money into the company by way of subscription to new shares.
The ongoing Series J round also included $74 million funding from existing investor Steadview Capital in January, which valued Ola at roughly $5.7 billion. In October 2017, Ola had raised $1.1 billion in fresh capital at a valuation of $3.5-4 billion from China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd and SoftBank.
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