Ola raises US$250 million in fresh funding from SoftBank

India’s largest cab aggregator service and ride hailing application Ola has raised fresh funding from Japanese investor SoftBank Group. SoftBank has invested through SIMI Pacific Pte Ltd, an affiliate of SoftBank Internet and Media Inc and invested in Ola’s parent company ANI Technologies.

Ola has raised these funds at a valuation of almost US$3 billion. The valuation of the company has been fluctuating since it started raising funds. It raised US$500 million in November last year at a valuation of about US$5 billion. Now, there are speculations rife in the market that Ola will raise another US$100 million from different set of investors which will take it valuation to US$3.5 billion.

Industry estimates place the market share of Ola close to 70% with Uber at the second slot. Both these companies have been burning a lot of cash to gain market share in this fast-growing business. This is one of the reason that Ola has raised over US$1.4 billion over past few years.

This includes investment from investors such as Tiger Global and Matrix Partners. This includes US$210 million in round led by SoftBank in October 2014; $400 million in round led by DST Global in April 2015; and US$500 million from Scottish investment firm Baillie Gifford, Didi Chuxing and other investors in November 2015. With the current round of investment, SoftBank is expected to be largest stakeholder in Ola followed closely by Tiger Global.