OLA Cabs is planning to develop itself as the next Infosys and hopes to list itself on the bourses in coming years. In an interview with Economic Times, Rajiv Bansal, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at ANI Technologies Pvt Ltd, laid out this roadmap. ANI Technologies is the company behind OLA Cabs.
(Ola) will have world class processes in 6-8
months and we want to be ready for an IPO as early as possible.If we execute properly we can be financially prepared for an IPO. If we execute well we can become Infosys.
Bansal joined the startup in January after quitting Infosys as CFO in October.
Bansal’s remarks indicate possible termination of services like Ola Cafe and Ola Store which the CFO dubbed as “experiments”, while calling the cab aggregation and wallet business critical to the company’s future. This may happen before the IPO which has been indicated as an eventuality by founder Bhavish Aggarwal as well.
Read Also: Upcoming IPOs in 2016: IPOs worth at least INR13,500 crores in pipeline
OLA Cabs is big but not so big
OLA has so far raised USD1.8 billion from venture capital firms and private equity investors including Tiger Global, SoftBank, Didi Kuaidi, DST Global, and Sequoia Capital, among others. The company is valued at a staggering USD5 billion on the basis of USD500 million investment round in November. This is still just a fraction of the USD62.5 billion its main rival Uber is valued at.
OLA is facing tough competition from Uber in India but has managed to hold its ground in what appears to be a battle of discounts. A public offer from India’s top ride-sharing company will be a closely watched affair among other technology IPOs which includes Flipkart and Craftsvilla.
Best equity brokers in India