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Battle With Uber Has Wiped Out A Fourth Of Ola’s $3 Billion Fundraise 

Ola’s consolidated losses mount to Rs 4,897.9 crore.

A fleet of Ola cabs stand on the roadside for an arragned pciture in Mumbai. (Source: Ola)
A fleet of Ola cabs stand on the roadside for an arragned pciture in Mumbai. (Source: Ola)

Cab-hailing app Ola has lost almost a fourth of its overall fundraise from investors since inception.

Consolidated losses of Ola widened to Rs 4,897.9 crore (about $750 million) as of March 2017 from Rs 3,147.9 crore a year before, according to its filings with the Registrar of Companies reviewed by BloombergQuint. The Gurugram-based ride-hailing company has raised a total of $3 billion so far, according to Crunchbase which collates information on startups.

Ola, operated by ANI Technologies Pvt., is locked in a fierce battle with Uber Technologies Inc. in Asia’s third-largest economy. Though both are backed by Japan’s SoftBank Group, Ola offers services in more than 100 cities compared to Uber’s 29.

To counter its global rival, Ola spent nearly Rs 5,183.6 crore in the financial year ended March 2017.

  • It, however, reduced its advertising and promotional expenses to Rs 284 crore in the year through March 2017 from Rs 437 crore in the previous year.
  • Revenue from operations doubled to Rs 1,177.8 crore.

Last year, Ola received the second largest fundraise by an Indian startup when it raised $1.1 billion from investors including Chinese internet giant Tencent and SoftBank.

San Francisco-based Uber too is ratcheting up its spending in India as it looks to catch up with Ola. Uber’s Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi, who was in India last month, reiterated that the company aims to reinvest profits back into products and technology in emerging markets like the Middle East and India, PTI reported.

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