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Softbank Internet and Media Inc today announced a second major funding initiative in the growing Indian e-commerce sector. It has invested $210 million in online cab booking services provider Ola (formerly Olacabs). This is apart from the $627 million invested in Snapdeal.
Existing investors, Tiger Global, Matrix Partners India and Steadview Capital have also participated in Ola's round.
Ola has in the last two months launched operations across nine Indian cities, taking its overall presence to 19, as well as new and innovative categories across existing cities.
This fresh investment led by SoftBank will further propel Ola to be an integral part of India’s transportation ecosystem across newer cities by making available an efficient, reliable and convenient option for users and service providers.
Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of SoftBank Corp. (SoftBank) said, “Since SoftBank’s foundation, our mission has been to contribute to people’s lives through the information revolution. We believe India is at a turning point in its development and have confidence that India will grow strongly over the next decade. As part of this belief, we intend to deploy significant capital in India over the next few years to support development of the market.”
Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder & CEO, Ola said, “We are thrilled with the pace at which we are growing. Ola is at the forefront of the mobile Internet revolution in India and Softbank as an investor and a strategic partner with its global network, brings a lot of relevant experience and knowledge of this domain. We will continue to build towards our vision of transportation as a seamless and ubiquitous service in every corner of the country and focus on the driver ecosystem to enable micro entrepreneurship and skill development at scale.”
Nikesh Arora, Vice-Chairman of SoftBank and CEO of SIMI, added, “India has the third largest Internet user base in the world, but a relatively small online market currently. This situation means India has, with better, faster and cheaper Internet access, a big growth potential. With today’s announcement SoftBank is contributing to the development of infrastructure for the digital future of India. We want to support the leaders and entrepreneurs of the digital future; Bhavish is such a great leader.”
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