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The Indian taxi provider, <keyword id="6354720" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ola">Ola</keyword> cab’s fundraising activity is being noticed by foreign investors China, Scotland as well as United States.<br />
<br /> Chinese leading cab aggregator, <keyword id="2857463" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Didi-Kuaidi">Didi Kuaidi</keyword> will be putting in around $30 million. Not just this but Ola might have US hedge fund <keyword id="4675629" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Meru-Capital">Meru Capital</keyword> and Scottish investment firm <keyword id="3069934" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Baille-Gifford">Baille Gifford</keyword> as its new investors, as per The Economic Times.<br />
<br /> If sources are to be believed, Ola is in advanced talks to close fundraising of about $500 million (Rs 3,000 crore) at a valuation above $5 billion. In its new round of <keyword id="6357455" type="EVENT" weightage="20" keywordseo="Funding">funding</keyword>, Falcon Edge and GIC Singapore could emerge as the biggest investors.<br />
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Ola is also in talks with New York-based Meru Capital and Scottish investment firm Baille Gifford for funding.<br />
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Official sources, requesting anonymity said, "The investors in the round are still being finalised and it is getting oversubscribed, so it may be expanded a bit."<br />
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The company’s CEO bhavish Aggarwal, however, didn’t respond to an email query sent to him but he said that the “company is not looking to raise more funding as it does not want to dilute more than 10%."<br />
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For the funding round, the company initially estimated a valuation of $4.5 billion before the investment but is now expected to increase it to around $5 billion, depending on the final amount it raises.<br />
<br /> Japan’s <keyword id="163404" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Softbank">SoftBank</keyword>, also an investor in Didi Kuaidi, in October 2014 valued Ola at around $650 million.<br />
<br /> Official sources, on condition of anonymity, said that Ola is raising funds in two separate activities with the first raising Rs 1,478 crore included investors like <keyword id="4675626" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Falcon-Edge-Capital">Falcon Edge Capital</keyword>, which put in Rs 515 crore, and Tiger Global, which invested Rs 397 crore and SoftBank put in Rs 384 crore.<br />
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The existing investors DST Global and GIC, which didn’t participated in the first round, might join in the second round.<br />
<br /> The new investors for the first round included Parkwood Bespin and <keyword id="3069933" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="JS-Capital">JS Capital</keyword>, besides Facebook Asia vice president <keyword id="368765" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Dan-Neary">Dan Neary</keyword>.<br />
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The investment from Didi Kuaidi, which recently raised $3 billion in one of the largest funding rounds globally, is significant as the Chinese firm has picked up stakes also in Singapore's Grabtaxi and Lyft, both Uber competitors in their respective markets.<br />
<br /> Ola is expected to cross annual gross revenue run rate of $1 billion by the end of the year, boosted in part by its $200-million acquisition of rival <keyword id="1428790" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="TaxiforSure">TaxiForSure</keyword>, whose revenue has doubled since the deal closed in March. Ola has raised about $700 million overall.<br />

Ola Cabs’ new round of fund raising to value it above $5 billion

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Flickr/SITS Girls</span></p><p class="caption">HelloFresh's produce comes in boxes.</p></div><p></p></div></div>German food delivery startup HelloFresh has raised €75 million (£54 million) in funding from Scottish investment firm Baille Gifford, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-17/hellofresh-valued-at-2-9-billion-after-venture-financing-round">Bloomberg reports.</a></p><p>The latest injection of funding has lifted the company's valuation to €2.6 billion (£1.8 billion) from just €600 million (£438 million), after a €126 million (£103 million) Series E round in February. HelloFresh is backed by the Samwer brothers' Rocket Internet, although the deal will see Rocket's share in the company drop from 58.9% to 57.2%.</p><p>HelloFresh delivers weekly meal kits - a kind of gourmet grocery service that makes it easier for people to make fresh food at home. The boxes are packed full of fresh fruit or vegetables, and other ingredients. It already has 250,000 regular subscribers, and serves over <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/15/hellofresh-is-delivering-4-million-meals-per-month/">four million meals a month</a> in the US, <keyword id="6354868" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="UK">UK</keyword>, the Netherlands, Austria, Australia, Germany, and Belgium. HelloFresh hasn't offered up profits for this year so far, but said it was earning revenues of €70 million (£51 million) in 2014.</p><p>It isn't the only company serving up fresh ingredients that you can cook at home. London-based Shuttlecook texts users a daily recipe, and delivers the exact ingredients to their workplace. US competitor Blue Apron has also been valued at $2 billion (£1.2 billion).</p><p>The company is thought to be considering an IPO, <a href="https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/german-meal-firm-hellofresh-valued-080312057.html">Reuters reports</a>, but has yet to give an exact time frame for it.</p><p><em>Business Insider has reached out to HelloFresh and will update this article with any response.</em></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/animated-scale-universe-atom-human-earth-galaxy-2015-9">This 3-minute animation will change the way you see the universe</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="JpMjRidzrV91DMzSO8bSnK_7bVSfKCdj" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Food delivery startup HelloFresh just hit unicorn status after raising €75 million in funding

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://transferwise.com/blog/2015-01/naked-and-body-painted-in-london-find-out-why/">TransferWise</a></span></p><p class="caption">TransferWise employees run naked through London to protest the "unfair" business practices of banks.</p></div><p></p></div></div>TransferWise, one of London's most valuable tech "unicorns," has taken a backhanded swipe at the government's new plans to make companies list all of their foreign employees - <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/yougov-60-support-tory-plans-for-foreign-workers-lists-amber-rudd-theresa-may-2016-10">a measure being introduced to prevent overseas workers <span>"taking jobs British people could do."</span></a></p><p><span><a href="https://transferwise.com/gb/blog/dear-amber-rudd">In a blog posted on TransferWise's website on Friday</a>, and titled "Dear Amber [Home Secretary Amber Rudd]" the company - which <span>allows people to send money abroad online with lower fees than banks and other traditional operators - defended its multinational workforce, saying:</span></span></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong><em>This week, the Home Secretary in the <keyword id="6354868" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="UK">UK</keyword> suggested employers should be required to report any foreign nationals they employ.</em></strong></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Happy to do just that. We're very proud of our international team.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It's that team that meant we were the first technology company to join the <a href="https://transferwise.com/gb/blog/transferwise-faster-payment-service">UK Faster Payments Network</a> earlier this year.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">It's that team that helps people move £800 million around the world every month - saving millions in unfair fees in the process.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">TransferWise and other tech companies in the UK innovate and compete globally - thanks to international talent.</p><p>TransferWise then goes on to list the 26 different nationalities of workers in its London headquarters, which include places as far afield as New Zealand, Argentina, and India.</p><p><span>The company was one of London's first fintech "unicorns" - a private business valued at over $1 billion - and has attracted funding from Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson, </span><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/transferwise-raises-26-million-from-baillie-gifford-at-11-billion-valuation-2016-5">and Scottish asset manager Baille Gifford</a><span>, among others. In job ads, it </span><a href="https://transferwise.com/jobs/position/271718-senior-product-manager">promises to "revolutionize" the world of international money transfer.</a> </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Stefan Wermuth/Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Home Secretary Amber Rudd.</p></div><p></p></div></div>The blog finishes by saying: "We're proud to be an international team, based in London. TransferWise is a global service, built by a global team, for a world without borders (or walls)."</p><p>Rudd's new proposals have been the subject of much debate in the past few days, with <a href="https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/783659868913827840">Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn accusing the government of fanning "</a><span><a href="https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/783659868913827840">the flames of xenophobia and hatred in our communities,"</a> and numerous business leaders speaking out against the plans.</span></p><p>However, a <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/yougov-60-support-tory-plans-for-foreign-workers-lists-amber-rudd-theresa-may-2016-10">poll undertaken by YouGov showed that the British public supports the proposals</a>, with 59% of respondents saying that they support the idea, while just 26% said they oppose it. The idea has particularly strong support in Labour "heartlands" of Wales, the Midlands, and the North of England. Support in those regions is 61%.</p><p>Its appeal straddles class boundaries, too: 61% of working-class people support the idea, and 58% of middle-class people do.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/joseph-stiglitz-trump-wrong-about-economy-2016-9">STIGLITZ: There are so many ways that Trump is wrong about the economy</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="hpbG52NTE64NRwftkqFKdZEPdhBMQ4b8" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

London unicorn TransferWise attacked the government's 'British jobs for British workers' plan

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Woodford Investment Management</span></p><p class="caption">Neil Woodford.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Star fund manager Neil Woodford claims short-term thinking among British venture capitalists is the reason why the <keyword id="6354868" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="UK">UK</keyword> has failed to produce tech startups as successful as Facebook or Google.</p><p>Woodford, who left Invesco Perpetual in 2014 to set up Woodford Investment Management, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37402344">told the BBC</a>:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"The limited number of success stories we've had here in the UK have generally sold out too early and I think again this comes back to the capital problem. Typically the businesses that have been successful and may have reached a couple of hundred or maybe more market value, they have been under pressure from their shareholders to sell-out.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"That's principally because of the time constraints on the capital that they have provided to those businesses. So they have been forced to sell-out and haven't had the choice really to stay domestic if you like and access more capital and become the multibillion-dollar international organisations that they had the potential to become. It's a capital provision problem."</p><p>Venture capital funds typically have to demonstrate returns to investors who give them money over a seven-year cycle, meaning that startup who have raised money from VCs can come under pressure to sell when the corresponding VC cycle is up.</p><p>Woodford <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37402344">told the BBC</a>: "We have been appallingly bad at giving those minnows the long-term capital they need."</p><p>Woodford was at Invesco Perpetual for over 25 years, ending up running two funds worth a combined £23 billion. His Invesco Perpetual High Income fund gained 2,213% in his 25 years at the helm, while the similar Income fund returned 1,839%, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/10803120/Neil-Woodford-talks-My-best-is-yet-to-come.html">according to the Telegraph</a> - both well outperforming the stock market.</p><p>Since setting up his own fund, Woodford has continued to have success, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33113081">with his fund rising by 18% in the first year against a 2% rise in the London Stock Exchange</a>.</p><p>Woodford has also begun investing in fintech - financial technology - and was featured on <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/40-coolest-people-uk-fintech-2016-4/#26-neil-woodford--woodford-investment-management-head-of-investment-and-founder-16">Business Insider's 40 coolest people in fintech list earlier this year.</a></p><p>Fintech is one of the hottest areas of tech in the UK at the moment and one of the few areas to produce homegrown British unicorns - tech businesses that are still private but worth over $1 billion. The UK's two fintech unicorns are online money transfer service TransferWise, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/transferwise-raises-26-million-from-baillie-gifford-at-11-billion-valuation-2016-5">worth a reported $1.1 billion</a>, and peer-to-peer lending platform Funding Circle, worth $1 billion.</p><p>Both have attracted cash from more traditional City investors, alongside venture capitalists: <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/transferwise-raises-26-million-from-baillie-gifford-at-11-billion-valuation-2016-5">Scottish fund manager Baille Gifford has invested in both</a> and <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/funding-circles-new-150-million-round-impact-on-smbs-2015-4">Funding Circle has also been backed by BlackRock and Singaporean wealth fund Temasek.</a></p><p>Woodford's new fund has taken positions in P2P Global Investments, which invests in peer-to-peer lending platforms, and VPC Specialty Lending, which does something similar. Woodford has also invested in <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/bbva-invests-45-million-in-atom-bank-at-150-valuation-2015-11">challenger bank Atom</a>, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/ratesetter-lloyds-cyrille-sall-de-chou-chief-risk-officer-2016-5">lending platform RateSetter</a>, and <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/seedrs-made-legal-in-the-us-2015-11">crowdfunding platform Seedrs</a>.</p><p class="tagline"><div id="categorypromo" style="border:1px solid silver; min-height:90px; padding:10px;vertical-align:top;"><a href="http://read.bi/fintechleadgen"></a><strong> EXCLUSIVE FREE REPORT:</strong><br />5 Top Fintech Predictions by the BI Intelligence Research Team. <strong><a href="http://read.bi/fintechleadgen">Get the Report Now »</a></strong></div></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/worse-for-wells-fargo-fbi-getting-involved-2016-9">Things are getting worse for Wells Fargo and now the FBI is getting involved</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="tmajl3NTE68xref3pHmnhlSXxxoSV1Tx" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Star fund manager Neil Woodford says 'appallingly bad' funding stops Britain creating the next Google or Facebook

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Funding Circle</span></p><p class="caption">Funding Circle founders, from left, Samir Desai, James Meekings, and Andrew Mullinger.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Marketplace lender Funding Circle halved its lending volume in the US at this start of the year after spotting underperforming loans in an earlier "vintage," according to the fintech company's chief risk officer.</p><p>A "vintage" is batch of loans. Jerome Le Luel, who joined the company from Barclays last October, made the disclosure during a press conference at Funding Circle's London headquarters on Thursday, citing it as an example of the company's pro-active approach to managing risk and making sure investors who lend money on the platform are properly protected.</p><p>Le Luel said: "It's our responsibility to take action fast enough."</p><p>"We keep scrutinising quality, it's like a factory, you're doing quality control and if you're not happy with what comes out of the chain you slow down, assess, fix, restart. We don't have a huge fixed cost base, that allows this."</p><p>Funding Circle, founded in 2010, is a marketplace, or peer-to-peer, platform that lets investors lend money directly to small businesses, cutting out banks who usually sit in between. While investors take on the risk of businesses defaulting on the loans, they stand to earn better returns.</p><p>Le Luel told journalists: "Last year, when I came in, we looked at the vintages we'd just created and although 2014 was looking fine, the first quarter 2015 vintage for some reason was going off track. Significantly off track. 50%. It was earlier on, 6 months along."</p><p>UK-listed VPC Specialty Lending Investments, which invests in peer-to-peer loans, said in a letter to investors last month that it stopped purchasing Funding Circle US loans late in 2015 after <a href="http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/08/05/2172038/funding-circle-and-other-online-lenders-falter-in-america/">finding they were "substantially underperform our expectations."</a></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Funding Circle</span></p><p class="caption">Jerome Le Luel, Funding Circle's chief risk officer.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Le Luel said: "We looked at that [the early 2015 loans] and without waiting for those loans to fully mature in 4 years, we drew the conclusion that there was something we didn't like. Early January, we tightened our acceptance criteria. We basically halved the number of loans we accept - a massive reduction - until we understand what's going on.</p><p>"We found that there were some channels that were not performing, we found that the model was not fully adapted to the US economy at that time. We decided to refine them. Suddenly, by May, we had developed tools that we could back test and get comfortable with it, and we started to reopen the taps a bit more."</p><p>Le Luel put the problems down early-stage teething problems with the US business. Funding Circle <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/interview-with-funding-circles-samir-desai-and-sam-hodges-2015-10">entered the US in 2013 through the acquisition of San Francisco's Endurance Lending Network.</a></p><p>"Our institutional investors, we have no retail investors in the US, we were very transparent with them," Le Luel said. "We said: 'Hey, this is what we've found, we are going to protect you. Sorry, it will be less money for a few months. Once we've got the right tools, it will start again.'"</p><p>A spokesperson for Funding Circle told BI: "The overall portfolio has delivered more than 8% per annum in the US for our whole loan marketplace, and we continue to target net yields of over 8%."</p><p>Le Luel said lending volumes in the <keyword id="6354868" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="UK">UK</keyword>, by far Funding Circle's biggest market, have been unaffected and the company is still growing at around 100% year-on-year.</p><p>Funding Circle held Thursday's press conference to showcase results of recent internal stress testing, showing the resilience of its loans in the wake of a possible recession.</p><p>The company's modeling suggests that even under the Prudential Regulation Authority's "apocalypse" scenario of a 60-month recession and a 30% fall in property prices, Funding Circle's new loans should still return around 3.9% to investors.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Funding Circle</span></p><p class="caption">Funding Circle's stress testing results.</p></div><p></p></div></div>The stress test findings contrast with comments made by Adair Turner, the former Chairman of the Financial Services Authority.</p><p>He told the BBC earlier this year that: <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/ex-fsa-chief-adair-turner-fintech-p2p-lending-interest-rates-2016-2">"The losses which will emerge from peer-to-peer lending over the next five to 10 years will make the bankers look like lending geniuses."</a></p><p>Le Luel began the stress testing process when he joined Funding Circle but said it was accelerated in the wake of the Brexit vote when institutional investors began asking for reassurances. Funding Circle cofounder and UK MD James Meekings said other than a slight dip on the day of the Brexit vote, activity on its platform has been largely unaffected.</p><p>Funding Circle has lent over $2.6 billion globally over its platform. The company has <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/funding-circle-acquires-zencap-2015-10">operations in Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands</a>, as well as the UK and US. The company has raised over $270 million from investors including BlackRock, Singapore investment giant Temasek, Scottish investment company Baille Gifford, and a fund owned by billionaire Russian internet entrepreneur Yuri Milner.</p><p class="tagline"><div id="categorypromo" style="border:1px solid silver; min-height:90px; padding:10px;vertical-align:top;"><a href="http://read.bi/fintechleadgen"></a><strong> EXCLUSIVE FREE REPORT:</strong><br />5 Top Fintech Predictions by the BI Intelligence Research Team. <strong><a href="http://read.bi/fintechleadgen">Get the Report Now »</a></strong></div></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tallest-residential-skyscraper-europe-spire-london-2016-9">London is building Europe's tallest residential skyscraper</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="9oeTFyNTE6xqXGiBDzbk2RfXs0j778Fd" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

You Searched For "Baille Gifford" and got 5 results

Ola Cabs’ new round of fund raising to value it above $5 billion

BI India Bureau

Food delivery startup HelloFresh just hit unicorn status after raising €75 million in funding

Lucy England

London unicorn TransferWise attacked the government's 'British jobs for British workers' plan

Will Martin

Star fund manager Neil Woodford says 'appallingly bad' funding stops Britain creating the next Google or Facebook

Oscar Williams-Grut

Funding Circle 'basically halved' US lending volumes at the start of the year

Oscar Williams-Grut

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