Tiger Global’s partner Lee Fixel steps down from Ola’s board

Tiger Global’s managing partner Lee Fixel has stepped down from the board of ride-hailing behemoth Ola. The US-based investment firm owns a significant minority stake in the Bengaluru-based company. According to a VCCircle report, Fixel had resigned somewhere late last month or earlier this month.

The reason for Fixel resignation is unknown, however, Tiger may have partially or completely exited from the ride-hailing company. In May this year, Softbank that owns 40% stake in Ola was in talks with Tiger Global to buy later stake.

Fixel heads Tiger Global's private equity and venture capital operations. He's been focused on India as well as the U.S., particularly within commerce and cloud software. Fixel had made several big bets in Indian startup ecosystem including Flipkart, Ola, and Quikr amongst others.

Before entry of Softbank and Tencent, Tiger Global has earned the reputation of making bold bets in India startups. It had pumped-in about $2.5 billion across 45 companies since 2005.

Last month, Ola had raised $2 billion in a round led by the investment arm of Chinese Internet giant, Tencent. Existing investor, Softbank Group Corp, also participated in the round. Founded by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati in, Ola had secured $3.9 billion in total funding across 11 rounds from about 20 investors.

Prior to Softbank’s aggressive bets on Flipkart and Paytm, Tiger Global’s $1 billion investment in Flipkart is the most audacious bet by any investor into Indian startups. The investment heavyweight had partially exited from Flipkart with 3X return when the online retailer had snapped-up $1.4 billion from Microsoft, Tencent and eBay.

Over the past two years, Tiger Global hasn’t made any new bet in India as exit route looks difficult for the investment firm. Gaining almost nothing from its portfolio companies - Caratlane, Titan, and Babyoye, Tiger Global exited from the aforementioned bets.

While it exited from online jewellery company Caratlane and Babyoye without any gain, it made a small profit by selling entire stake in Tata Group’s watch and jewellery retailing firm Titan.