China's Didi Kuaidi announced its participation in the latest round of financing for Ola, a taxi service provider in India.
Ola's other investors in this round included GIC, Falcon Edge, Tiger Global, and SoftBank.
With the new investments, Ola hopes to continue its expansion in the domestic Indian market. The company recently announced plans to invest USD754 million to enhance its car rental business by adding new vehicles. It will first invest USD75 million to increase its manpower to 100,000 drivers before the end of 2016.
Ola was co-founded by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati in Bombay in 2011. The company provides online taxi hailing services to users, who can hail taxis or rent cars or motor tricycles via website or mobile app. Official statistics from Ola showed that the company held over 80% market share in India, with 320,000 cars in over 100 cities. The company provides services in nine languages, including English and Hindi.
In August 2015, Didi Kuaidi announced plans to invest in Grabtaxi, a leading taxi app in Southeast Asia. Earlier last month, the Chinese group announced strategic cooperation with American transportation service provider Lyft.
Jean Liu Qing, president of Didi Kuaidi, also announced this past weekend that she was fresh out of the hospital after having a breast cancer tumor removed.
