Ola raised a $500 million Series F round from new investors Baillie Gifford and Didi Kuaidi and existing investors DST Global, Falcon Edge Capital, SoftBank Telecom Corp and Tiger Global Management bringing the Bangalore, India-based startup’s total funding to more than $1.4 billion.
Ola is Uber’s biggest rival in India and is on an aggressive expansion drive. The company has grown thirtyfold over the past year, with its drivers now receiving more than 1 million ride requests per day.
Though it hasn’t publicly disclosed its new valuation, media reports have pegged it at $5 billion, allowing Ola to climb even higher on Fortune‘s Unicorn List of billion-dollar startups.
Ola currently operates in 102 cities across India and says 78% of cab users there have its apps on their smartphones. Uber, on the other hand, is in only 22 Indian cities as of a month ago.
Ola is also now one of the world’s top funded travel startups, surpassed in total funding by Uber, Airbnb and Chinese competitor Didi Kuaidi, for example, and is currently neck-and-neck with Lyft. Didi Kuaidi, which invested in Ola’s most recent round, also announced a partnership with the company in September.
The mobile app cab-booking company was founded in 2010 and this latest funding round positions the startup to have a $5 billion valuation. Ola has more than 350,000 cars across 102 cities in India and says it will use the investment to reach 200 cities by next year.