The car and taxi marketplace will reportedly raise the cash from investor including SoftBank, the telecommunications firm it received $210m from late last year.
Ola, the India-based transport marketplace formerly known as Olacabs, is set to raise $400m in a series E round backed by investors including telecommunications company SoftBank, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.
Investment firm DST Global will provide “the bulk” of the cash for the round, which will also include Tiger Global Management and will value Ola at about $3bn, two people familiar with the matter told the WSJ.
Founded in 2011, Ola operates an online marketplace for car rentals and taxi services. It currently has about 100,000 vehicles in its network spanning 85 Indian cities, having boosted its size through the $200m acquisition of rival TaxiForSure two weeks ago.
SoftBank previously invested $210m in Ola in October 2014 at a valuation just short of $1bn, when it was operational in just 19 cities. Ola intends to expand the service to 200 cities in the next three months.
The company has raised more than $275m from investors also including Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital, Steadview Capital, Kunal Bahr, the founder of e-commerce company Snapdeal, and DST’s founder Yuri Milner.
