Flipkart Co-Founder Sachin Bansal invested about Rs 650 crore in Ola, giving the Indian ride-hailing company more ammunition to compete with rival Uber.
The investment is in Sachin's personal capacity and is also the largest financing by an individual in Ola to date, the cab aggregator said in a statement. In January, Ola issued shares worth Rs 150 crore to Sachin as part of series J round of funding.
“We are extremely thrilled to have Sachin onboard Ola as an investor,” Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder and chief executive officer of Ola, said. “Sachin is an icon of entrepreneurship and his experience of building one of India's most respected businesses ground up, is unparalleled.”
Sachin, who founded Flipkart over a decade ago with Binny Bansal, had quit after the U.S. retail behemoth Walmart picked up a 77 percent stake in the Indian e-commerce company for $16 billion.
“Ola is one of India's most promising consumer businesses, that is creating deep impact and lasting value for the ecosystem,” Sachin said.
The investment is part of Ola's plans to raise about $1 billion in funding. In October last year, the Bengaluru-based company had announced raising $1.1 billion funding from China's Tencent Holdings and SoftBank Group.
It had also stated that it was in “advanced talks” to close an additional $1 billion funding to take total mop-up to more than $2 billion.
Ola is locked in a battle for market leadership with the U.S.-based Uber in India and other markets like Australia, New Zealand and the U.K.
The Indian company has also been aggressively ramping up its food delivery operations, through Foodpanda.
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