Flipkart’s co-founder and former CEO Sachin Bansal has invested nearly $21 million (Rs 150 crore) in Bengaluru-based cab hailing firm Ola. This information has come from documents filed with the registrar of companies (RoC), sourced from Paper.vc, reports Economic Times.
As per the report, Sachin has bought 70,588 ‘Series J’ preference shares at a value of Rs 21,250 per share. This infusion of capital is part of a larger $100 million investment that Sachin committed to Ola last year, which will be his largest personal investment. Post this particular investment, Ola’s valuation will stand at $5.7 billion. As part of the same fundraising round, Ola raised $74 million from Steadview Capital very recently.
Post the Walmart-Flipkart acquisition, Sachin Bansal exited from the company he founded by selling his stake to Walmart, making nearly $1 billion from the deal.
This investment also comes at a time when Sachin has registered a new venture along with former investment banker Ankit Agarwal, which will focus on areas such as fintech and agritech. He is likely to float his own ventures in these two sectors and may invest as a major stakeholder in startups in these sectors.
Ola last raised $1.1 billion led by Tencent Holdings in October last year, which also participation from SoftBank.
In October 2018, Ola’s funders Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati sought Competition Commission of India’s approval to increase their stake in their company by buying shares from existing shareholders. CCI, at the time, approved acquisition of 6.72% shares of ANI Technologies, which is the holding company of Ola.
There were also reports in December 2018, SoftBank, which is also Ola’s largest shareholder, offered to invest nearly $1 billion in a fresh funding rounding.
Ola has been aggressively expanding its presence across the globe as well. It is now operational in India, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. The company claims to conduct one billion rides a year around the world, with more than a million drivers and 150 million customers in over 125 cities.
It is also betting big on the food delivery business post the acquisition of Foodpanda, which has now expanded its presence to 100 cities, including tier 2 and 3 cities.