Exclusive: Uber India’s next big-ticket investment to be before April 2016, even as Tiger Global becomes one of its major funders

Taxi hailing aggregator Uber made headlines when it was revealed on Thursday that it is raising a $2.1 billion round of funding, valuing the company at upto $68 billion. This came at a time when news of its competitors, i.e., India-based Ola, China-based Didi Kuaidi, US’s Lyft and Malaysian Grab Taxi entering into a partnership in a bid to counter Uber was made public.

The partnership ensures that passengers can book a ride in any of the above mentioned services using just one app.

While this move was hailed revolutionary and the assumption that it might be successful in bringing down Uber was widely publicized, a reliable industry source had something completely different to tell Business Insider.

As it turns out, Uber has grand plans in sight for its India operations. If sources are to believed, the company which is present across 22 cities in India will be fast expanding their footprint in the country in the next year, namely in the Tier-2 cities.

Additionally, Uber India’s strategy for next year will focus heavily on further strengthening their positions in the existing markets via high quality products and services.

That’s not all. According to our source, Uber will also be soon making an announcement regarding heavy investment in its India operations for 2016. This decision has been taken after the company noticed a favourable shift in the country’s economy and its business in India.

This investment will reportedly be along the same lines of Uber’s investment in India, this year. The company had committed to a whopping investment of $1 billion (Rs 6,400 crore) to expand its India operations in July, this year. The investment was supposed to be utilized over a period of 12 months. Uber has recently publicly said that it wants to and will be in a position to capture as much as 50% of the Indian taxi-hailing services’ market.

Uber’s biggest rival Ola might have a few more reasons to worry, apart from this. According to reports, among those investing in the recent round of investments wherein Uber is raising $2.1 billion is the venture capital arm of Tiger Global Management.

This bit of information becomes all the more crucial as Tiger Global is not only one of Ola’s biggest investors, but it has previously also invested in other ride-hailing apps such as China’s Didi Kuadi and Singapore’s GrabTaxi.

Tiger Global’s move to arming these companies’ largest competitor with millions is evidence to the fact that the battle between Uber Technologies and its competitors is cut-throat, and only the best will win!

Image credit: Indiatimes