Ola’s valuation crosses $7.3 Bn; completes GeoSpoc acquisition for $3.5 Mn

Mobility major Ola continues to defy the normal laws of valuations by scoring $139 million in its ongoing Series J round led by Edelweiss. The new tranche also saw the participation of 20 other investors comprising financial corporations, family offices, individuals and strategic investors.

This is the second funding tranche for Ola in 2021. It had announced a $500 million pre-IPO round in July from Temasek, Warburg Pincus and Bhavish Aggarwal.

Edelweiss Crossover Opportunity Fund led the new tranche with Rs 250 crore while IIFL Special Opportunity Fund and IIFL Monopolistic Market Intermediaries Fund collectively invested Rs 187 crore, regulatory filings with MCA shows.

Siddhant Partners and Tejal Merchantile have invested Rs 100 crore each whereas Hero Enterprise has put in Rs 112.5 crore. Biovet has invested Rs 50 crore and Equity Acquisition participated in the new tranche with Rs 35 crore.

Alka Family Trust, Atul Family Trust, Deepak Vijay Nathani, Ashutosh Vinayak Joshi, Vital Real Estate, M Sashi Badalia and Sons have invested Rs 25 crore each. Four other investors have collectively poured in Rs 33 crore.

According to Fintrackr estimates, Bengaluru-based Ola has been valued at $7.3 billion (post-money) after the allotment of the fresh tranche.

This new tranche appears to be a part of the pre-IPO round as Ola plans to go public by the first half of the coming year. Entrackr had exclusively reported about its IPO plan in October. The Bhavish Aggrawal-led company also entered into the used car buy-sell business which Entrackr exclusively reported in July.

Ola has also completed the acquisition of geospatial services provider GeoSpoc for Rs 26 crore, a separate regulatory filing showed. The ride-hailing major had announced the acquisition last month but had not disclosed any further details about the deal.

Severely hit by the pandemic, Ola registered a 63% decline in its operating revenue to Rs 983.2 crore during the fiscal ended in March 2021. During the period, the company’s total expenses also went down from Rs 5,058 crore to Rs 2,007 crore as a result, the company managed to reduce its losses by 49% to 1,116 crore.

Amidst its IPO plans, Ola’s top management has also seen restructuring in the recent past as the company’s CFO Swayam Saurabh and COO Gaurav Porwal quit.