Cab-hailing firm Ola, operated by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, has raised about $50 million (Rs 322 crore) from New York-based hedge fund Tekne Capital Management LLC, as part of the company’s ongoing funding round, a business daily said.
The Economic Times quoted two people familiar with the development saying that the latest round of funding will push Ola’s valuation to about $3.65 billion from $3.5 billion in February. In August 2015, the company was valued at $4.8 billion.
The financial daily also said that Ola is talking to several other investors, including Coatue Management LLC, for raising more funds in this round.
Last month, the Bangalore-based company had raised Rs 670 crore in a fresh round of funding from Ratan Tata’s venture fund RNT Capital Advisers LLP and US hedge fund Falcon Edge Capital LP .
Tekne Capital is a hedge fund founded by Beeneet Kothari, a former portfolio manager at PointState. Coatue is a technology sector hedge fund that invests in public and private equity markets.
Ola did not immediately respond to queries from VCCircle.
The funding comes at a time when Ola’s arch rival, Uber Technologies Inc., has been facing a host of issues. Besides, Uber’s board of directors has also been asking CEO Travis Kalanick to step aside temporarily.
Founded by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati in 2010, Ola had previously raised money from marquee investors including SoftBank, Tiger Global and Matrix Partners.
Ola has been burning a huge amount of cash to gain market share in its bid to stave off competition from Uber.
Ola reported a three-fold rise in consolidated net losses to Rs 2,311.7 crore for 2015-16, as total expenditure surged to Rs 3,078.19 crore from Rs 899.7 crore in the previous fiscal year. Its operating revenue jumped to Rs 438.6 crore from Rs 57.5 crore during the period.
Ola’s recently-disclosed financials for its cab-leasing arm, Ola Fleet Technologies Pvt. Ltd, show it has posted a loss of Rs 13.3 crore in 2015-16, compared to a profit of Rs 3.9 crore in the year-ago period.
