Ola raises Rs 1,000 cr from Yes Bank, to fine tune its loss making cab-leasing services

Home-grown cab aggregator Ola, in its effort to maximise cab-leasing services, has raised Rs 1000 cr ($156.3 million) in a debt funding from Yes Bank, revealed MCA filings of the company.

According to the fillings, the investment is part of a hypothecation deed agreement, which was signed on March 21, 2017.  The raised amount will be used by the company to finance the purchase of more commercial vehicles, used by its driver partners.

The cars purchased using the loan will serve as collateral, apart from the vehicles’ consumables and replacement parts. The loan agreement will be valid for a period 48-60 months.

The leasing service helps locking drivers on the platform for certain duration of the lease- six months to 48 months. The service also ensures a steady supply of cars and reduces the burden of spending on driver incentives. In July, Ola had 800,000 driver partners on its platform.

Ola has earlier in 2016, took Rs 250 crore loan. The firm has also raised debt loan form Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank worth ₹300 crore, ₹200 crore and ₹100 crore respectively.

Earlier this year, Ola had launched the leasing programme and invested Rs 5000 crore.

In Jan 2015, Ola bought Delhi-based radio taxi service provider GCabs for an undisclosed amount and renamed it to Ola Fleet Technologies. In its bid to stay ahead from its San-Francisco-based rival Uber, Ola has been burning a huge amount of cash to entice customers and gain market share.

The cab-leasing arm of the cab aggregator has posted a loss of Rs 13.3 crore for FY16 compared to a profit of Rs 3.9 crore the previous year, according to the RoC.

Net sales, though, tripled from Rs 1.8 crore in FY15 to Rs 5.6 crore in FY16. Total expenditure went up from Rs 8.1 crore to Rs 11.7 crore. Ola, posted a consolidated net loss of Rs 2,311.7 crore in 2015-16 compared with Rs 796 crore in 2014-15.

Founded by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati in 2010, Ola has raised around $1.4 billion till now from marquee investors that include SoftBank, Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, Baillie Gifford and DST Global.