Brief: SoftBank pumps $250m more into Ola

Ola co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal. Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

• SoftBank has pumped US$250 million into Ola, Uber’s Indian rival, documents filed with the Registrar of Companies reveal. Tech in Asia had earlier reported that Ola had secured US$330 million in fresh funding, at a valuation of US$3.5 billion, 30 percent lower than its previous valuation.
• This comes a year-and-a-half after Ola’s last major funding of US$500 million in November 2015. Last year was tough with SoftBank writing down its investment in Ola.
• SoftBank is currently negotiating for the sale of its biggest investment in India, the beleaguered ecommerce site Snapdeal, to Flipkart. The funding of Ola comes in the same week as the US$1.4 billion funding of Flipkart by Tencent, Microsoft, and eBay.

Source: VCCircle

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