Ola on Monday acquired TaxiForSure for $200 million in a cash and equity deal, signaling consolidation in the $11 billion taxi industry.
Ola and TaxiForSure will continue to operate as separate entities.
“Ola and TaxiForSure share the same vision of revolutionising urban mobility. TaxiForSure has a great team and they have built a very exciting business in a short time. I'm very excited to welcome the TaxiForSure team onboard and look forward to working with them towards realising our common vision," said Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder and CEO, Ola.
“The leadership and all of the 1,700 employees shall continue to work with TaxiForSure, with Arvind Singhal [currently COO] being appointed the the CEO,” Ola said.
Aprameya Radhakrishna and G. Raghunandan, the founders of TaxiForSure, will contribute in an advisory role for a certain period, a statement from the company said.
Ola has been funded by Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital, Steadview Capital and most recently, Softbank, over its four rounds of fund-raising. Investors in TaxiForSure are Accel Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Helion Venture Partners.
Ola, which is already the market leader in the personal transportation space with over 1-lakh vehicles on its platform. TaxiForSure is currently in 47 cities with over 15,000 vehicles registered on its platform.
(With inputs from Pradeesh Chandran)