Ola parent wants to up share capital to mop up $300 m

NEW DELHI: ANI Technologies, which owns and operates homegrown ride-hailing platform Ola, has proposed increasing its authorised share capital to include an additional number of Series-J shares, indicating a further issuance to mop up $300 million, even as it closes a strategic investment by global auto majors Hyundai and Kia Motors.

In March, Hyundai and Ola agreed to collaborate extensively on developing unique fleet and mobility solutions; building India-specific electric vehicles and infrastructure, and offer customised vehicles on the Ola platform. The share capital hike comes at a time when the ANI Technologies-owned company is in the process of raising an estimated $1 billion in equity financing, with its valuation also topping $6 billion.

According to a filing with the Registrar of Companies and accessed by business signals provider paper.vc, Ola said a clutch of new investors including Flipkart cofounder Sachin Bansal and the two auto majors, who came on board in the funding round, would pay the same price per share — Rs 21,250 for 1162259 Series J cumulative compulsorily convertible preference shares.

An Ola spokesperson did not respond to an email questionnaire sent by ET.

The stake held by SoftBank, the single largest shareholder in the company, is also likely to drop to 23.37%, according to paper.vc. The combined stakes of Ola founders, Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, are also likely to go up marginally to 10.88% post the increase in authorised capital.

“SoftBank will continue to be the single largest stakeholder in Ola, and the relationship between them and the company is one for the longterm…Keeping Soft-Bank at less than 25% helps raise additional capital from other large institutional investors at a later stage,” said an industry source with knowledge of the developments.

The company’s founders have earned close to Rs 100 crore through secondary share sales in the ongoing financing round.

Ola has been diversifying its investor cap table, roping in a cohort of US-based investors such as Raymond S Cahnman, chairman of Transmarket Group, philanthropists Tina and Steven Price, J3T Ventures and Lyon Assets, among others.

Separately, Ola Electric Mobility, the company's e-vehicle solutions business had also raised Rs 400 crore in fresh funding from Matrix Partners India and Tiger Global, among other investors, a transaction that also marked its first independent round of investment.