Indian taxi-hailing app Ola has closed a $500m (£327m) Series F funding round, with participants including Baillie Gifford, Falcon Edge Capital, Tiger Global, SoftBank Group, DST Global and Didi Kuaidi. The round takes Ola’s total funding to more than $1.3 bn, $1.2bn of which has been raised over the past year.
Ola said it will use the funds to further accelerate its growth in the Indian market across existing and new categories, and to build and nurture the ecosystem for its driver-entrepreneurs. The company has grown 30x in the past year, and now clocks up more than 1m booking requests a day. It has over 350,000 vehicles registered on its platform and operates across 102 cities in India.
“As we pursue our mission to build mobility for a billion people, we are excited about bringing onboard partners who can help us get there faster,” said Ola CEO and co-founder, Bhavish Aggarwal. We will continue to build for the local market through innovative solutions like Ola Share, Ola Prime and Ola Money, as we grow the mobile ecosystem in India.” 
According to the firm, 78 per cent of cab users in India now have an Ola app. The company offers a range of transportation options, including Kaali-Peeli taxis in Mumbai; Auto-rickshaws in six cities; Yellow Taxis in Kolkata; and Ola Share in Bangalore. This is a first of its kind social ride-sharing option for users within their groups of choice, operating in beta in the city. ETAs on the Ola app across categories have reduced to an average of five minutes across cities, with categories like Mini and Auto consistently being available within two minutes in most cities.
