Tata group’s private equity fund to pick up stake in Uber

“Tata is synonymous with entrepreneurialism in India and we are incredibly excited to have TOF on board as a partner”.

Taxi hailing service Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] has received fresh investment from Tata Opportunities Fund, a private equity fund advised by India’s Tata Capital, as it expands its business, the companies said. TOF is the second Indian entity to invest in Uber after The Times of India group’s Times Internet bought a small stake for about Rs 150 crore in the US based company in March. “Right now, we’re particularly focused on building a great service for hundreds of millions of Indians-Tata’s leadership and experience will be crucial in helping us meet this important goal”, said Travis Kalanick, chief executive officer of Uber Technologies.

Last month, the company had announced an additional investment of Dollars 1 billion in India as it targets one million rides a day in 6-9 months.

TOF is a $600-million fund, which was raised in early 2013 from certain marquee investors. “We look forward to working with the team on innovative new opportunities to help both riders and drivers”, TOF Managing Partner Padmanabh Sinha said in a statement. In addition to the $600-million fund, there is also an appetite for limited partners to invest alongside, he said.

TOF has a corpus of $600 million, of which it had already committed around $400 million across six deals.

Uber’s partnership with the Tata Opportunities Fund follows other strategic relationships with Baidu in China, AmericaMovil in Latin America, and American Express in the US.

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