Sachin Bansal to buy 10% stake in Ola

Sachin Bansal, the co-founder of ecommerce giant Flipkart and who made big fortune of $1 billion after exit, is planning to buy 10% of stake in Ola for $100 million.

According to sources, the Flipkart co-founder Bansal will be buying new shares in the company.

The decision of Bansal comes at a time when Ola is going for massive global expansion that started off with Australia.

This will be the largest personal investment for Bansal, who has several early-stage bets under his hood.

Bansal holds a good relation with Bhavish Aggarwal and both fought against capital dumping and “selective globalisation” in India.

Ola, which is valued at $4.3 billion, has investors like SoftBank Group and Singapore's Temasek as shareholders. The company is in intense fight with its rival Uber in India.

Bansal last year mooted the idea of level-playing field for Indian internet companies to ensure that they can build solutions for the Indian market and should not be “prematurely killed” by foreign competition.

“Another big thing that is happening across the world is the rise of anti-globalisation... it was all the time in China and US, selective globalisation rather. I meant there should be level playing field,” Bansal said at the IAMAI India Digital Summit.

The founder of Flipkart already invested in learning platform Unacademy, news app Inshorts and electric scooter-maker Ather Energy.

Ola Cabs, owned by ANI Technologies, started its journey in 2010 at Mumbai and later shifted its headquarteres to Bengaluru. In March 2014, OlaCabs acquired Bangalore based taxi service TaxiForSure for approximately $200 million. In December 2017, Ola acquired Foodpanda's business in India.

According to Indian Internet business analysts, Sachin Bansal's decision to invest 10% share in Ola sets another era in Indian startup journey to protect local internet companies from management crisis.

"Bansal, who lost his control on India's leading ecommerce platform Flipkart after Walmart acquisition, vociferously mooted level playing field for Indian internet companies from multinational internet giants and corporations. His move will give some vigour to Indian internet companies to stand up in the competition," he said.