Ola may invest in car-pooling app sRide; bike rental startup Royal Brothers raises funding

ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which operates cab-hailing app Ola, is in talks to invest in Pune-based corporate car-pooling app sRide Tech Pvt. Ltd.

The Economic Times said, citing persons in the know, SoftBank-backed Ola could pick up 26% stake for Rs 30 crore, valuing the firm at Rs 100-150 crore.

Email queries to Ola and sRide did not get any response till the time of publishing this report.

SRide, founded in 2014 by Lakshna Chadha Jha and Nitin Chadha, raised $1 million in seed funding in 2016, and an undisclosed amount in 2014.

The startup currently operates in Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Pune and Bengaluru.

Ola, on the other hand, has been rolling out several programmes and expanding globally to grab market share from US-headquartered rival Uber.

The company runs a two-wheeler service under Ola Bike, a three-wheeler service under Ola Auto, and a taxi service.

In December, Ola had pumped $100 million (around Rs 720 crore) in scooter-sharing firm Vogo in a move aimed at diversifying its offerings.

Last month, Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal invested Rs 149.99 crore ($21.18 million) in Ola.

Bike rental startup Royal Brothers raises funding

Bike rental startup Royal Brothers said it has raised $1 million (Rs 7 crore) in a pre-Series A round from angel investors.

The round saw participation from Pradeep Deviah, chairman and chief executive, PDA Trade Fairs, a division of Pradeep Deviah and Associates Pvt. Ltd; angel investor Amrith Prasad; and others. The round was a mix of primary and secondary share purchases, the firm said in a statement.

With the recent funding, the company plans to strengthen its inventory across all the cities where it has a presence, besides expanding business to other states. “Royal Brothers will also introduce riding gear rentals across the currently operational cities, and start long-term leasing. It also aims to introduce electric bikes as well,” the firm said in the statement.

Founded in 2015 by chief executive officer and director Abhishek Chandrasekhar, Royal Brothers received seed capital of Rs 1.8 crore in the same year. The company claims to be the first bike rental platform to be licensed to operate in Karnataka, Gujarat, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.

The startup offers a range of two-wheelers -- from scooters to superbikes -- which can be rented in 17-plus cities across six states of India. It currently has nearly 1,700 two-wheelers.

NestAway in funding talks with Fosun, others

Online home rental startup NestAway Technologies Pvt. Ltd is in discussions to raise $100 million (Rs 714 crore at current exchange rate) from investors including Chinese conglomerate Fosun International Ltd and Chinese venture capital firm Shunwei Capital, two persons in the know told Mint.

Email queries to Bengaluru-based NestAway and Shunwei did not get any response till the time of publishing this report, while Tej Kapoor, managing director and head of Fosun RZ Capital India, said he was “not aware of any such transactions”.

Last year in March, NestAway had raised $51 million (Rs 332.5 crore) in a Series D round of funding led by Goldman Sachs and UC-RNT Fund and joined by existing investors IDG Ventures and Tiger Global.

NestAway, which is one of the most funded players in the space, was founded by Amarendu Sahu, Deepak Dhar, Smruti Parida and Jitendra Jagadev in January 2015. It turns for-rent apartments into managed, fully-furnished houses and provides them to pre-verified tenants.

NestAway caters to over 35,000 tenants and 16,000 owners, including over 7,000 family owners in Bengaluru, Delhi, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Greater Noida, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Noida, Mumbai and Pune. It competes with peer-to-peer (P2P) property listing portal NoBroker and branded and managed paying guest accommodation provider Zolostays.

The firm, which initially targeted single working professionals, has expanded its services to families. Currently, the company offers both shared and private rooms for individuals as well as properties for families.