Indian cab service Ola acquires its rival TaxiForSure for $200 million in a cash and equity deal.
“Ola and TaxiForSure share the same vision of revolutionising urban mobility. TaxiForSure has a great team and they have built a very exciting business in a short time. There’s a lot of complementary value in the strategy TaxiForSure has followed,” said Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder and CEO, Ola.
Ola and TaxiForSure will continue to operate as separate services.The leadership and all of the 1700 employees shall continue to work with TaxiForSure, with Arvind Singhal (currently COO) being appointed the CEO.
TaxiForSure is currently in 47 cities with over 15,000 vehicles registered on its platform.Ola offers 100,000 vehicles in 67 Indian cities.
Ola has been funded by Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital, Steadview Capital and Softbank.
Investors in TaxiForSure are Accel Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Helion Venture Partners.
Ola was founded in January 2011 by IIT Bombay alumni Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati.
TaxiForSure was founded in June 2011 by IIM-Ahmedabad graduates Raghunandan G and Aprameya Radhakrishna.