Didi Kuaidi Invests in Indian Car Hire App Ola
National Business Daily, 9/28/15
Xiaoju Kuaizhi Inc ("Didi Kuaidi"), operator of Chinese mobile taxi booking and car hire apps Didi Chuxing (formerly Didi Dache) and Kuaidi Dache, has announced that it invested an undisclosed amount in Indian car hire app Ola's latest round of funding along with GIC, Falcon Edge, Tiger Global, and SoftBank China Venture Capital. Ola expects to use this funding to continue expanding in the Indian market.
Ola recently announced that it will invest USD 754 mln into its car rental service line to increase the size of its rental fleet. Its initial investment totaled USD 75 mln, and it plans to add 100,000 drivers during 2016.
Ola was founded in 2011 and allows users to make taxi, rental car, and electric tricycle reservations via its website or mobile app. Ola's official data shows that it has over 80% of India's mobile taxi booking market, with 320,000 vehicles in over 100 cities. Ola provides services in 9 languages including English and Hindi and it completes approximately 750,000 transactions per day.
Didi Kuaidi noted that India and China are both massive markets with many similarities, and added that it will begin discussing its products and technology with Ola. It will also share its experience in big data algorithms and operations.
Editor's Note: Marbridge Consulting contacted National Business Daily and Didi Chuxing, but neither was available to confirm whether the 80% market share mentioned above refers to the taxi market only or all car hire services, or whether the market share figure is based on requests, trips, users, or some other metric.
Keywords: Falcon Edge Ola overseas India funding wireless Tiger Global GIC Xiaoju Kuaizhi Softbank China Venture Capital Didi Kuaidi car hire app taxi booking app M&A VC
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