In brief: Ola founder at odds with SoftBank over Uber, sources say

• Ola co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal is fighting to maintain his independence against key investor SoftBank, according to sources familiar with the matter.
• The Japanese conglomerate, led by Masayoshi Son, was an early backer of Ola. But Aggarwal has grown concerned about its influence as SoftBank took a stake in Ola’s archrival Uber and then encouraged the competitors to merge.
• Son struck a preliminary deal to put another US$1.1 billion into Ola to boost SoftBank’s stake to more than 40%, according to people familiar with the matter. But Aggarwal tried to include terms to guarantee his own control over the startup, and the deal fell apart.
• Instead, Aggarwal is piecing together smaller slices of funding from unaligned backers. This year alone, Ola picked up US$300 million from Hyundai Motor and about US$90 million from Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal.

Source: Livemint