There's a hint of new competition riding into a sector that has attracted attention for being in a duopoly-like situation. Rapido, a commute app known for its budget-friendly bike-taxi services, on Tuesday announced its entry into the cab market, which is currently dominated by marquee brands Uber and Ola. Rapido's cab foray will be enabled by a software as a service (SaaS)-based platform.
A 2014 study had ranked IITs as fourth among the top 50 universities globally, whose graduates were entrepreneurial.
Cab-hailing service Ola is on the fast track on the back of a $500 million funding.
IPO-bound mobility platform Ola, said it has successfully raised $500 million via a Term Loan B (TLB) from marquee international institutional investors. This term loan has no impact on the valuation of Bhavish Aggarwal-led Ola. The Bengaluru-based firm recently raised $139 million. This is part of a $1 billion funding round for which the company is in talks with investors, increasing its valuation to about $7.5 billion, according to the sources.
OlaCabs' hyper-growth and an ambitious plan to expand to 100 cities by the end of 2015 are perhaps what attracted Japan's richest man, Masayoshi Son, chairman of telecom and media group SoftBank Corp, to announce an investment of $210 million (around Rs 1,260 crore) in the company.
The Ludhiana-born engineer is among the youngest entrepreneurs on TIME's 100 most influential people.
The new tranche of funding raises Ola's valuation to $5.74 billion from $4.45 billion in October 2017
'Ola in India makes money on every ride. Our focus over the past couple of years has been to keep growing the market and our share in the market and build up on sustainable business,' says co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal.
With regard to his investment in Ola, Bansal said that on the one hand, the ride-hailing major had emerged as a global force in the mobility space and on the other it continued to build deeper for various needs of a billion Indians through its platform. This is the largest funding by an individual in the app cab.
Be it for the organisation they work for, or for their own venture, if they believe in an idea, they work relentlessly towards it.
Internet entrepreneurs are the next big thing in India.
Meru Cabs' founder says they were a traditional company.
None of the top five start-ups launched by IITians - Flipkart, Zomato, Ola Cabs, Housing.com and Inmobi - were incubated at IITs
For the four new players, the spike in wealth is 126 per cent.
Looks at 100 km ride on single charge, ideal for big cities
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