Ola raises $500 million in Series F funding

The Chinese startup declined to specify how much it had invested to the fund that was also featured backers including Baillie Gifford, Falcon Edge Capital, Tiger Global, SoftBank Group, DST Global.

The proceeds will be utilize to fuel supply initiatives, build supply capacity and to go deeper into existing markets.

With the latest funding, the hi-tech-driven firm has cumulatively raised $1.3 billion so far, with $400 million in fifth round from DST and other venture partners in April, $210 million in fourth round from SoftBank and others in October 2014.

Ola, which mainly competes with global giant Uber, has been rapidly expanding its services across the mobility space. Uber has been upping the ante in India to take on the local player by launching similar services, including auto-rickshaw hailing service.

Ola’s mobile apps is available on the smartphones of 78 percent cab users in India according to recent mobile intelligence reports.

Ola had raised about $222.5 Mn in a fresh round of funding led by New York-based hedge fund Falcon Edge Capital, which was likely to be part of Ola’s previous announcement to raise about $500 Mn.

Ola now gets a million booking requests a day, and has more than 350,000 vehicles registered on its network, the company said in the statement. “We will continue to build for the local market through innovative solutions like Ola Share, Ola Prime and Ola Money, as we grow the mobile ecosystem in India”, said Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder and CEO of Ola.

Ola acquired Bengaluru-based cab aggregator TaxiForSure for $200 million in a cash and equity deal in March this year from its co-founders A. Radhakrishna and G. Raghunandan.