BANSAL RAISES HIS OLA INVESTMENT TO $21 MN
BENGALURU: Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal has invested $100 million in India’s largest cab-hailing platform Ola and is expected to invest more, as Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal aims to diversify the company’s investor base amid a boardroom battle with its biggest backer, SoftBank.
According to regulatory documents filed on Monday, Bansal has pumped $21 million into Ola so far, indicating that he will invest the entire sum in tranches.
This is Bansal’s first major investment after he sold his stake in Flipkart for nearly $1 billion following his ouster from the online retailer after Walmart bought a controlling stake in May. Bansal’s latest investment in Ola is widely seen as strengthening the hand of Aggarwal, who is fighting a long-drawn-out boardroom battle with largest shareholder SoftBank, which has offered to invest more in Ola and increase its stake in the ride-hailing platform.
As part of the latest round, Bansal has been issued 70,588 series J preference shares at a price of ₹21,250 a share, according to documents filed with the Registrar of Companies, sourced from data intelligence platform Paper.vc.
Over the past few weeks and months, Ola has been raising capital in tranches as part of its broader discussions to raise $1 billion in fresh funds. Ola recently received $74 million from existing backer Steadview Capital, as part of the same round. The latest funding boosted Ola’s valuation to $5.7 billion.
The Economic Times reported in December that SoftBank had offered to invest $1 billion in fresh capital into Ola. It is unclear whether Aggarwal will take more money from SoftBank, even as Ola continues to finalize discussions with other new investors such as Singapore’s Temasek, which has already bought shares in Ola through a secondary transaction. Either way, Bansal’s presence will help Aggarwal fortify his position against SoftBank.
Over the past two years, Ola under Aggarwal had changed its articles of association (AoA) to include a clause preventing SoftBank from buying more shares in Ola without approval from the company’s founders and the board.