The Unicorn; Ola; 独角兽企业; 21/174

The Unicorn; Ola; 独角兽企业; 21/174


21.Ola (aka Olacabs; dba Ani Technologies)

Company Information

 

Valuation $5 billion
Sector Software
Headquarters Bangalore, India
Founded 2010
CEO Bhavish Aggarwal

Bhavish Aggarwal

Bhavish Aggarwal Indian entrepreneur and founder of Ola Cabs.[1] Aggarwal was born in Ludhiana, Punjab.

Aggarwal career with Microsoft Research, where he worked for two wonderful years and was able to file two patents and publish three papers in International Journals. But the entrepreneurial itch was too hard to resist and he decided to quit his job in August 2010 and moved to Mumbai. In September 2010, he co-founded Olacabs from his home Ludhiana.

He has received his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay, in 2008.

Ola Cabs

OlaCabs, commonly known as Ola, is an Indian online transportation network company. Ola started as an online cab aggregator in Mumbai, now based out in Bangalore.

It was founded on 3 December 2010 by Bhavish Aggarwal (currently CEO) and Ankit Bhati. By 2014, the company has expanded to a network of more than 200,000 cars across 85 cities. In November 2014, Ola expanded to incorporate autos on-trial basis in Bangalore.[1] Post the trial phase, Ola Auto expanded to other cities like Delhi, Pune and Chennai starting December 2014. In December 2015, Ola expanded it’s auto services in Chandigarh, Indore & Jaipur. Ola was valued at $5 billion as of September 2015.

Service

Ola provides different types of cab service ranging from economic to luxury travel.[2] The cabs are reserved through a mobile app. This cab service supports both cash and cashless payment options with Ola money. It claims to clock an average of more than 150,000 bookings per day and commands 60 percent of the market share in India.[3] November 2014 Ola also started on-demand auto rickshaw service on its mobile app in Bangalore, Pune and few other cities.

In October 2015, Company claimed to have 80 percent of the taxi market share in India,

Ola started more services such as Ola Cafe, Ola Store, Ola Shuttle, Ola Money and Ola Corporate.[4]

Ola has been in the news all through this year. From raising big bucks (details below) at growing valuations (the company is currently valued at around $5 Bn) to launching a slew of different offerings such as its ride sharing service called Ola Share in Delhi NCR to its Shuttle service called Ola Shuttle. The company also engaged in multiple partnerships tostrengthen its business

Strategic partnership with China’s Didi Kuaidi, US-based Lyft and Malaysia’s GrabTaxi, which will allow passengers to book rides on any of these four services using just one app.
Partnership with customer-based chat services company, Haptik, which will allow users to book Ola cabs through instant messaging on the Haptik mobile app.
Partnership with MapMyIndia.

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