In a major boost to Ola in its battle against rival Uber, the company has raised Rs 400 crore from Tata Group’s Chairman emeritus Ratan Tata. According to a report in Business Standard, RNT Capital Advisors, the venture capital firm floated by Ratan Tata made its maiden investment in Ola.
As per the report, the investment will also see University of California becoming a backer of Ola. RNT Capital Advisors Advisors onboard UC as a Limited Partner (LP) last year. This is the first investment for the Rs 65,000 crore fund of UC fund in India. The UC fund, which makes 10-15 year bets may even give Ola access to long-term capital and technology from university-funded labs in California.
RNT’s investment in Ola is part of the $330 million funding round that was led by Japanese investment firm Softbank late last year. Apart from these two investors, New York-based hedge fund Falcon Edge Capital returned to invest around Rs 26 crore into Ola at a valuation Rs 22,750 crore.
Ratan Tata had taken a short hiatus after he took over as the interim Chairman of Tata Group late last year. He had begun investing in startups round 2012. Now with RNT Capital advisors, Ratan Tata is looking at investing in startups not just in India but also in Southeast Asia.
According to BS, with the investment, Ola has now built itself a war chest of around Rs 325 crore to take on Uber, which is also aggressively expanding its presence in India.
Industry estimates say Ola has a market share of 65% in India with Uber in the second spot, as per a report in the Economic Times.
Nationally, Ola operates in over 100 cities, with more than 5,00,000 vehicles attached to its platforms and over 5,50,000 driver-partners on board.
Image: Ola Facebook page