Vanguard Group cuts Ola’s valuation by 35% to $4.8 Bn

After Oyo, Byju’s and Swiggy, ride-hailing major Ola has faced valuation markdown by its backer Vanguard Group. The global investment management firm has reduced Ola’s valuation by 35% to $4.8 billion from its peak value $7.4 billion.

While Vanguard valued its stake in Ola at $51,825,000 in August 2022, it reduced its holding to the tune of $33,865,000 at the end of February this year. It’s worth noting that this valuation downmark didn’t change Ola’s valuation until the Bengaluru-based company raises new money in a down round.

The company last raised Rs 150 crore as a part of Series J round in February last year.

The markdown has come at a time when two ride-hailing behemoths Ola and Uber have not been growing as fast as they used to until 2019-2020.

Ola, however, isn’t alone. Recently, foodtech giant Swiggy and India’s largest privately valued firm Byju’s faced valuation cuts.

Invesco, which led Swiggy’s last round at a $10.7 billion valuation in January 2022, nearly halved the valuation to $5.5 billion.

Meanwhile, BlackRock reduced the valuation of Byju's to $11.5 billion from $22 billion. SoftBank, the largest investor in Oyo, also slashed the internal valuation of the hospitality company to $2.7 billion in September last year.

While Ola is yet to disclose its FY22 numbers, its scale shrank 63% to Rs 983.2 crore in FY21 from Rs 2662.63 crore in FY20. On the lines of its collection, the company’s losses also reduced by 49.4% YoY to Rs 1,116.6 crore.