Olacabs raises Rs.250 crore Series C funding from Steadview Capital, Sequoia Capital and existing investors

Olacabs has secured INR 250 crore Series C investment from Hong Kong based hedge fund Steadview Capital and Sequoia Capital. The round was also participated by existing investors Tiger Global and Matrix Partners India.

Ola will use funds from to expand its operations to newer markets and spruce-up supply ecosystem to enable micro-entrepreneurship in the driver stakeholder segment. The company also announces earmarking of Rs.100 crores towards nurturing supply ecosystem in the next one year.

According to some media reports with this round, Olacabs said to have joined Rs.1000 crore valuation club. The size of investment will equip Mumbai based company to compete Uber, which has been expanded to six Indian cities in last nine months.

Speaking about investment, Bhavish Aggarwal, co-Founder and CEO, Olacabs said,

Building a high quality transportation network in India involves substantial effort and investment. We intend to be present in at least 20 cities by the end of this year and deeply involved with the supply ecosystem by helping drivers become entrepreneurs and creating socio-economic empowerment for them.

At present Olacabs offers transportation across point-to-point, local and outstation rentals and has over 11,000 cabs on its platform across nine cities. The company aspires to expand into 10-12 cities by the end of this year.

Post investing, Gautam Mago, Principal, Sequoia India shared,

The need for quick and efficient point to point transport is very large in urban India. Ola is the leader in addressing this need via technology, benefiting both consumers and drivers. We think highly of Bhavish, Ankit and the team at Ola and look forward to partnering with them.

Earlier in this May, Bangalore based online taxi aggregator Taxi4sure had raised $10 million Series B round from Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel Partners, Helion Venture Partners and Blume Ventures.

The cab market has seen a lot of traction over the past couple of years. TaxiForSure recently raised $10 million with a focus on expansion to tier 2 and 3 cities. Uber has been aggressively launching across multiple Indian cities after starting in Bangalore just 8 months ago. The Indian cab market is pegged anywhere between $6-$9 billion dollars by different estimates, and is forecast to grow at 17-20% annually. More importantly, only about 4-6% of this market is organized sector – the rest is by operators who own fleets of 2-50 cars and typically have a presence in one city.

Olacabs seems to be the front-runner in the Indian market with their state-of-the-art mobile first approach to booking cabs. It was the first Indian taxi company to make users aware of the nearest cabs, this gave the freedom to users to book cabs at their own convenience. It’s really good to see Ola giving Uber a tough fight in the Indian market by constantly upgrading its technology.

The cab market is getting really exciting with all the major players trying hard to make a mark in this sphere.