Ola Raises Rs. 670 Crores From Ratan Tata-Backed Fund, Others

SoftBank-backed Ola has raised Rs. 670 crores ($104.4 million) in fresh funding from investors including UC-RNT Fund, a venture between the University of California and Ratan Tata.

While UC-RNT Fund has pumped in Rs. 267.99 crores, another Rs. 402 crores has been infused by FO Mauritius I Ltd, according to regulatory filing by ANI Technologies - which runs Ola.

However, the valuation of the company benchmarked against the fresh round of funding could not be ascertained. The said shares were allotted to the investors on March 31, 2017. An email sent to the company remained unanswered.

The Bengaluru-based firm, which is locked in an intense battle with US-based Uber for market leadership, had raised about $250 million (roughly Rs. 1,605 crores) from SoftBank in November, albeit at a lower valuation of $3 billion (roughly Rs. 19,262 crores) (compared to $4.5 billion or roughly Rs. 28,892 crores earlier).

ANI Technologies, which is not a publicly-traded company, has raised investments of over $1.5 billion (roughly Rs. 9,631 crores) from investors, including SoftBank Group, Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, Steadview Capital, Sequoia India, Accel Partners US and Falcon Edge.

While Ola has been successful in raising a sizable amount of funds, it continues to bleed on account of heavy advertising and promotional expenses and high employee cost.

The company posted a consolidated loss of over Rs. 2,311 crores - about Rs. 6 crores a day - during fiscal 2015-16.

ANI Technologies did see its revenues registering a stellar growth at Rs. 758.23 crores during 2015-16 compared to Rs. 103.77 crores in the previous fiscal.

Ola, which has a presence in 110 Indian cities compared to Uber's operations in 29, has been aggressively expanding its portfolio of services.