One of India’s most well-known entrepreneurs, Sachin Bansal, has picked up a stake in the ride-hailing venture Ola.
The Flipkart co-founder has invested $21 million (Rs 150 crore) in Bengaluru-based Ola, according to filings with the registrar of companies, sourced from business intelligence platform Paper.vc.
ALSO READ: Bengaluru-based co-living startup Grexter raises $1.5 million
This is among Bansal’s first investment after his ouster from Flipkart after the Walmart deal when he sold his 5.5 percent stake in the online retailer for nearly $1 billion.
He has been issued 70,588 series J preference shares at a price of Rs 21,250 per share, according to documents filed.
37-year-old Bansal has been scouting for deals. Bansal’s other investment include SigTuple, scooter startup Ather Energy and news aggregator Inshorts.
ALSO READ: Azim Premji Foundation backs Binny Bansal’s VC fund
Bansal has also registered a new venture, BAC Acquisitions, along with former investment banker Ankit Agarwal.
As a part of this round, Ola – owned by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd. – raised Rs 520 crore ($74 million) from existing investor Steadview Capital. The latest round has pulled up Ola’s valuation to $5.7 billion.
In October 2017, Ola had raised $1.1 billion in fresh capital at a valuation of $3.5-4 billion from China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd and existing investor SoftBank Group and had said that it was in talks to raise an additional $1 billion.
Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal has been looking to bring in more capital through new investors to avoid ceding control to SoftBank, which currently holds roughly 26% in the company.
Ola is also looking to foray into the medicine delivery space through an investment in Myra Medicines.