China’s Internet giant Tencent Holdings has invested $ 400 million in the cab aggregator startup Ola according to documents filed with the Registrar of Companies (RoC.)
According to the RoC filings, Singapore based Copper Technology Pte., Ltd., owned and operated by Tencent, will take a 9.57 % stake in the company. ANI Technologies Pvt., Ltd., Ola’s parent company, issued the shares to Copper Technology at Rs.13,521 apiece by allocating 1,908,143 preferential shares.
This round of funding would value Ola at $ 4.1 billion, while recent media reports put the firm’s valuation at $ 3.8 billion. VCCircle reported, Ola has raised close to $ 800 million in funding since November last year, including a $ 250 million investment from Japanese major SoftBank. Including this round of funding, Ola has raised close to $ 1.93 billion to date.
The capital from Tencent will give a lot of firepower to Ola in its battle against Uber, which is also in talks to acquire a $10 billion investment from SoftBank. This investment by Tencent will also reduce SoftBank’s 22.5% stake in the company. The Chinese investment holding company has been looking to get a share in the lucrative Indian market. So far, it has already invested close to $ 900 million in multiple Indian startups, including Flipkart, Practo Technologies and Hike Messenger.
Ola, which has been raising funds at regular intervals for the past couple of months, is expected to continue its fundraising efforts to keep competition at bay. According to industry analysts, SoftBank may also push for a possible consolidation deal between Uber and Ola, despite the latter continuously raising funds. This funding round will be followed by an investment of $ 1 billion by SoftBank. However, the Japanese firm has set terms for Ola to receive the second part of the planned investment.
Both Ola and Tencent have not commented on this latest round of funding.