Battle Among Cab Providers Hots Up: Olacabs To Acquire TaxiForSure

India’s taxi cab market has seen a phenomenal growth since last two years. And now with an aim to take on Uber, Olacabs is likely to acquire its competitor TaxiForSure for about Rs 1,250 crore, as per a media report.

The Economic Times has reported that Olacabs, which has the backing of Japan's SoftBank, will pay cash and offer stocks for the acquisition. "The term sheet has been signed and in the next 10 days the finer details will be chalked out," according to a source quoted by the newspaper.

"The transport aggregation business is a fairly tricky space right now, given the regulatory scrutiny," said Srikanth Narasimhan, director at boutique investment bank Veda Corporate Advisors. But he also added that “this is a passing phase.”

Even internationally, taxi aggregators are in talks to form an alliance against Uber.

“This acquisition marks a significant development in the taxi app business in India. This will be problematic for Uber because it does not have any offline presence and no stated plans of being in that space," said Sunil Wattal, who teaches management information systems at Temple University in the United States, told the leading news daily.

In October 2014, Olacabs had received investments worth $210 million in a round of funding led by Japan’s SoftBank.