Staff of Reuters Read for 2 minutes (Adds details, background on IPOs, company) Reuters, BENGALURU, July 9 – Ola, an Indian ride-hailing company backed by SoftBank Group Corp of Japan, announced on Friday that private equity firms Temasek and Warburg Pincus are investing $500 million in the company ahead of its anticipated IPO (IPO). Ola declined to comment on its IPO ambitions, but did say that it is continuing to expand its company across numerous categories and geographies. “We’ve made our ride hailing company more strong, durable, and efficient over the previous 12 months. With a solid recovery following the lockout and a shift away from public transit, “Bhavish Aggarwal, Chairman and Group Chief Executive Officer, stated in a statement. When pandemic-related lockdowns led people to stay at home last year, Ola was forced to eliminate approximately 35 percent of its personnel and suspend 95 percent of its activity. The company’s latest round of funding comes at a time when prominent Indian startups are going public through initial public offerings (IPOs) to take advantage of a flood of liquidity from foreign funds and the country’s new generation of retail investors, with 22 companies having gone public so far in 2021. Zomato, an Indian meal delivery service, announced on Thursday that it would price its 93.75 billion rupee ($1.26 billion) initial public offering between 72 and 76 rupees per share. One97 Communications Ltd, the parent company of Indian payments company Paytm, will file a draft prospectus for a domestic market debut as early as July 12 in order to raise $2.3 billion. Ola was expected to start the IPO process by March 2021, according to Reuters (reut.rs/3wxOrmW). 74.6100 Indian rupees = $1 Nallur Sethuraman contributed reporting from Bengaluru, while Shounak Dasgupta and Rashmi Aich edited the piece./n
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