Breaking: Hyundai, Kia Motors lead $351 mn round in Ola at $6.2 bn valuation

Bengaluru based ANI Technologies Pvt Ltd, which operates ride hailing service Ola, has raised $351.50 million (Rs 2469.80 crore at current rates) in a funding round led by South Korean automotive major Hyundai Motor Company.

Hyundai and its subsidiary Kia Motors Corporation have invested $243.38 million and $60.84 million respectively, accounting for nearly 87% of the total round, according to filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. New investors who participated in the round include Mirae Asset, which invested $35.21 million, Swedish investment firm DIG Investment, which pumped in $8.08 million, and US-based Deshe Holdings ($2.52 million).

The remainder came from British Virgin Island based  entity  ZM Rawji International Ltd , Samih Abdel Rahman Samih Toukan, a Dubai-based individual investor and  Hussam Khoury, another individual investor based in Jordan, the filings showed. TechCircle could not immediately verify the identities and credentials of these three investors.

By TechCircle’s estimates, Ola’s post-money valuation following the latest infusion stands at  $6.2 billion valuation (Rs 43622.65 crore at current foreign exchange rates).

Email queries to Ola did not elicit a response at the time of filing this report.

The latest filings come a week after Ola’s board hiked its share capital to provide for a $355 million (Rs 2,469.80 crore) fundraise. The share capital provision was made to receive the $300 million commitment that was announced in March by Hyundai and Kia Motors, a person privy to the development told TechCircle at the time.

For Ola, the funding come at a time when several media reports have speculated that it is in the midst of raising a larger $1 billion round. Ola has been raising funds from new investors at regular intervals in an apparent bid to diversify its investor base and notably keep its largest investor, Japanese internet and media conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp, in check. 

In February, new foreign investors -- Raymond S Cahnman, chairman of trading firm TransMarket Group, New York-based philanthropists Steven Price and wife Tina, J3T Ventures, and investment firm Lyon Assets -- had ploughed Rs 112 crore ($15.6 million) into the company In the same month, Ola pocketed Rs 650 crore ($92 million) from Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal. In January, it secured Rs 520.8 crore ($74 million) from previous investor Steadview Capital.

According to recent media reports, potential investors in the reported $1 billion round could include Singapore state investment firm Temasek and South African technology conglomerate Naspers. In fact, Temasek and Ola founders Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati had recently sought to buy a 10% stake in the company through secondary purchases.

Previous filings also revealed that Ola had raised around $52 million from three Chinese investors -- Eternal Yield International, Sailing Capital and China-Eurasian Economic Co-operation Fund.

Ola has entered three overseas markets -- Australia, UK and New Zealand -- over the past year, as part of its efforts to keep competition, chiefly San Francisco based Uber, at bay.  It also entered the food delivery sector by acquiring Foodpanda’s India operations. Foodpanda has expanded to 100 cities, as per a recent announcement by the company.