Ola stares at low valuation as fresh funding round nears

Ola, which was valued at $5 billion last year, may see a decline in its valuation, which will consequently have a negative impact on its fresh funding round. Ola, which is playing aggressive to counter the rising competition from Uber, has no choice but to shore up its capital on low valuation.

Ola, at present, is being valued somewhere between $3 billion and $4 billion in its latest round of funding led by existing investor Japan's SoftBank.

The desi ride hailing app still remains the leader with about 60% market share and was last valued at $5 billion when it raised $500 million in November 2015.

"The funding from SoftBank is already in the bank and Ola is raising the round at a valuation of $3 billion,” a person aware of the matter told ET.

SoftBank has invested about $250-300 million in Ola already as part of the new round in which the company is expected to raise additional capital of about $500 million.

Now the company is also looking forward to get investments from other existing investors like Russian billionaire Yuri Milner's DST Global and Tiger Global Management.

"One of the new investors in talks with Ola is New York-based technology focussed hedge fund Coatue Management and a deal may be finalised in January 2017,” one of the sources told ET.

Globally several companies have also raised a down round in the last 12 months. These include US-based on-demand delivery application Door-Dash besides firms like Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's payments venture Square and storage startup Box, which went for an IPO below their private valuations.

Most famously, Facebook also saw its valuation fall from $15 billion in 2008 when it raised capital from Microsoft, to $10 billion when it raised funding from DST Global.
(image: IndiaTimes)