Ola, the local company battling Uber for the Indian ride-hailing market, has raised $1.1bn from investors including China’s Tencent and Japan’s SoftBank, pushing this year’s funding into Indian technology start-ups to a record high.
Founded in 2010 by then 25-year-old Bhavish Aggarwal, Ola claims internally to have a clear market share lead over its US rival, supporting more than 2.5m rides per day across India. This is nearly double the latest figure claimed by Uber — for which the Indian market has taken on heightened importance since it sold its struggling Chinese unit last year to local rival Didi Chuxing.
Ola’s new funding falls short of the $2bn that it had been attempting to raise in this round, although it said it was still in talks with investors to raise a further $1bn.