Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal has invested Rs 149.99 crore ($21.18 million) in ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which operates homegrown cab-hailing major Ola.
According to the company’s latest filings with the Registrar of Companies, the investment was made on 12 January 2019.
However, a person close to Ola and directly in the know said that Bansal has invested Rs 650 crore ($91.74 million at current exchange rates) and the RoC filing reveals only a small tranche of the larger sum. The company has already received the entire investment, he added speaking on condition of anonymity.
Bansal’s Rs 650-crore investment will value Ola at approximately $5.8 billion (Rs 4,090 crore at current exchange rates), according to TechCircle estimates. This is a slight increase from its $5.7-billion valuation it was pegged at when it raised $74 million (Rs 520 crore) from Steadview Capital last week.
E-mail queries sent to Ola did not elicit a response at the time of filing this report.
The development comes a little less than eight months after Sachin Bansal quit Flipkart after Walmart bought the homegrown e-commerce major. It also comes amid recent media reports which stated that Bansal is likely to invest $100 million in Ola.
This is also his largest disclosed investment till date. Prior to this, Bansal had been an active angel investor, typically writing cheques between $100,000 and $500,000.
Last month, Bansal launched BAC Acquisitions Pvt. Ltd with his former IIT Delhi batchmate and investment banker Ankit Agarwal.
For Ola, the funding comes at a time when media reports state that it is in the midst of raising a larger $1-billion round. However, last week, online media publication YourStory, citing a highly placed person in the know, stated that Ola will raise $2 billion in fresh funding.
According to recent media reports, potential investors could include Singapore state investment firm Temasek and South African technology conglomerate Naspers. In fact, Temasek and Ola founders Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati had sought to buy a 10% stake in the company through secondary purchases.
Previous filings also revealed that Ola had raised around $52 million from three Chinese investors, Eternal Yield International, Sailing Capital and China-Eurasian Economic Co-operation Fund.
Ola has entered three overseas markets—Australia, the UK and New Zealand—over the past year, as part of its efforts to keep competition at bay. It also operates in food delivery by acquiring Foodpanda’s India operations. Foodpanda has expanded to 100 cities, as per a recent announcement by the company.
However, Ola has also been battling a string of high level exits in recent times. Earlier in the day, Ola’s interim senior vice president and chief operating officer quit the company after a six-year stint.
