Ola has sealed the TaxiForSure deal for $200 mn

The rumours about Ola cabs taking over TaxiForSure were doing rounds for quite some time now, but today they have come to an end. According to a company press release, Ola, India’s leading mobile app for personal transportation, has acquired TaxiForSure, India’s second largest cab aggregator, for $200 mn in a cash and equity deal.

With this acquisition, investors in TaxiForSure— Accel Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Helion Venture Partners—will roll over their stock into Ola. Presently, Ola has been funded by Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital, Steadview Capital and most recently, Softbank over its four rounds of fund-raising.

It’s worth noting that even after the deal, Ola and TaxiForSure will continue to operate as separate entities. The leadership and all of the 1,700 employees shall continue to work with TaxiForSure, with Arvind Singhal (currently COO) being appointed the CEO. Aprameya Radhakrishna and Raghunandan G, the founders of TaxiForSure, will contribute in an advisory role for a certain period. TaxiForSure is currently in 47 cities with over 15,000 vehicles registered on its platform.

Commenting on the deal, Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder and CEO, Ola, said, “Ola and TaxiForSure share the same vision of revolutionising urban mobility. TaxiForSure has a great team and they have built a very exciting business in a short time. There's a lot of complementary value in the strategy TaxiForSure has followed. I'm very excited to welcome the TaxiForSure team onboard and look forward to working with them towards realising our common vision.”

Raghunandan G, co-founder and CEO, TaxiForSure, said, “TaxiForSure coming together with Ola will provide us with more opportunity than ever, to do what we do best. Post this acquisition; the combined entity will be strong enough and better capitalized to offer the best value to all our stakeholders, including our customers. This development ensures that industry attractiveness is preserved and the combined entity can race ahead and continue to create unprecedented value for all stakeholders.”