Ola raises $50 M funding led by Chinese investors

Ola, the Bengaluru-based ride-hailing platform has raised $50 million funding led by two Chinese investors, at a valuation of $4.3 billion. The fund raise is believed to be led by China-Eurasian Economic Cooperation and Hong Kong-based Sailing Capital.

According to media reports, this fund raise will be part of Ola's move to raise fresh funds of atleast $1 billion.

According to the company's RoC filing sourced by Paper.vc, a business intelligence platform, China-Eurasian Economic Cooperation and Sailing will hold a combined stake of over one percent in Ola. Last October, the company had raised fresh funds of $1.1 billion at a valuation of $3.5 billion from Tencent Holdings and Japan's SoftBank.

Earlier this month, Singapore-based Temasek had bought secondary shares from former and early Ola employees, which are believed to be worth $30 million. Post this secondary sale, founders Bhavish Aggrawal and Ankit Bhati's stake in the company is believed to have increased. There also is speculation that Bhavish is currently stuck in a boardroom battle with its largest investor, SoftBank, which also is an investor in Uber.

Last year, the founders are said to have added a clause to prevent SoftBank from buying more shares without approval from the founders and the board. This fundraise comes at a time when Ola is aggressively expanding internationally and is fighting a battle with its San-Francisco based rival.

To ensure Ola remains at the top of its game, it has to consistently raise fresh funds. Since its inception in 2011, Ola has raised $2.5 billion in funding and is one of the unicorns in the Indian startup ecosystem. The ride-hailing app is also aggressively pushing aggressively Foodpanda, the online food delivery company it acquired early this year, in response to Uber Eats launching in India.

With the alleged boardroom tussle with Softbank and Ola's aggressive plans, it will be interesting to see the next steps of this Bengaluru-based unicorn.