10/08/2015
MUMBAI: In its biggest bet so far in India, New York-based hedge fund Falcon Edge is pumping $100 million (Rs 630 crore) in taxi-aggregator service Ola, valuing it at $5 billion (Rs 31,580 crore) post the investment, according to three people familiar with the matter. An existing investor in Ola, Falcon Edge's cheque is part of a $500-million financing round in the taxi-hailing app which will see a two-part close, sources who did not want to be named said. The first chunk of $300 million is already in with Falcon's investment along with Softbank and Tiger Global putting $75 million (Rs 470 crore) each. Early investor Matrix Partners and another hedge fund Steadview Capital have also participated in this new round.
The rest of the $200 million is slated to come in over the next two months from other investors, sources said.
The talks are still on with some external investors and in the next 60 days, the second close will be wrapped up, said one of the sources cited earlier. Ola had raised $400 million in April this year in a round led by Yuri Milner's DST Global. The four-year-old company will see its valuation double in six months since that round. DST Global is still to decide on its participation in the latest round, sources indicated.
When contacted over email, Navroz Udwadia, CEO of Falcon Edge, said he could not comment, while Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder & CEO of Ola, did not respond to TOI's query.
Falcon Edge had made a small $20 million investment in the earlier round when Ola was valued at $2.5 billion.
The on-demand taxi space is seeing unprecedented action in India as rivals Uber and Ola duke it out to get a bigger share of the fast-growing domestic market. The Travis Kalanick-led Uber, which lags Ola in terms of user base, recently said it will invest $1 billion in the country over the next nine months.
