Ola, India’s Ride-Hailing Leader, Raises $1.1 Billion to Fight Uber
The lead investor in the funding round was Tencent Holdings, the Chinese technology giant
that owns WeChat, an all-purpose app that many Chinese use to send messages, buy products, transfer money, read news and hail cabs.
MUMBAI, India — India’s leading ride-hailing service, Ola, said on Wednesday
that it had raised $1.1 billion in new funding, giving it a bulging war chest to battle Uber in a country where only a tiny portion of the population owns cars.
The additional funding puts SoftBank in an awkward position, since it is also in the final stages of making a large investment in Uber.
Tencent and Alibaba, another Chinese internet giant, have also been aggressively investing in Indian tech start-ups.
Investors in the United States and China view the emerging middle class in India as an important market,
and they want to back companies that can win over those customers