Ola draws strong interest from Sachin Bansal, may end up raising $100 Mn

Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal may invest around $100 million in ride-hailing major Ola. If the deal goes through, it would be the largest fund through personal capacity in India.

Bansal's interest in Ola cropped up during the Bengaluru-based company's last funding round of $50 million. The round was led by Hong Kong-based Sailing Capital (SC) and the China-Eurasian Economic Cooperation Fund (CEECF) and it valued Ola over $4 billion.

According to an ET report, Bansal’s investment in Ola will be largely through subscription of new shares of Ola, with a small component coming through a secondary sale by existing investors.

As Sailing Capital and CEECF combinedly got 1.17 per cent stake in Ola for $50 million investment, Sachin Bansal may get a little over 2 per cent in the company as per the latest valuation.

As of now, Softbank, Tencent, Tiger Global and Matrix Partners together hold more than 60 per cent shares in Ola.

According to industry experts, this is the best time to invest in the company which does about 2 million rides daily and expanding its operations in overseas markets such as UK, Australia, New Zealand, and others.

Further, Ola plans to achieve profitability by the end of 2019.

Sachin Bansal had previously praised Ola’s co-founder and ride-hailing app. The duo had a short stint in developing IndiaTech.org--a startup lobby group earlier headed by Sachin Bansal.

The lobby group was formed to create a level playing field for domestic startups.

Soon after exiting Flipkart, Bansal's attachment with the lobby group went in limbo. Flipkart too had left the group recently.

Besides, media reports claim that Bansal is planning to raise $1 billion startup-focused fund.