Tata Sons chairman emeritus Ratan Tata, who has shown a penchant for investing in startups in the past two years, has now cherry-picked online cab aggregator Ola. Tata made this investment in his personal capacity. The amount invested remained undisclosed.
“It is our honour to have Ratan Tata on board as an investor. This is a huge endorsement from one of the most respected business leaders and reflects Ola’s commitment towards the future of mobility. We look forward to learn from Tata’s experience that will help us build a world class organisation from India,” said Bhavish Aggarwal, Ola co-founder.
This round of investment, comes within three months after the company raised $400 million from DST Global.
Tata has shown interest in the fast-growing consumer internet sector and invested in a few of them. His interest in technology companies is evident by the choices he has made. Of the 10 companies where Tata invested since 2014, six are technology start-ups.
Tata’s past investments show he is betting on the biggest players in each of the consumer internet verticals. In the e-commerce space, he placed his bet on one of the largest players Snapdeal by investing undisclosed amount in 2014. Snapdeal had raised $627 million in 2014 from Japan’s SoftBank, one of the largest investments in the Indian technology company. Later in the same year, he invested in two other leading e-commerce companies — Bluestone and Urban Ladder.
Apart from money, the Tata brand name and his presence on the board helps founders in taking company decisions. In an earlier statement, Vijay Sharma, Paytm CEO, said, “I am happy that Tata has put faith and trust in our values and mission. There is no better advisor for Paytm on building India’s most trusted mobile payment and commerce platform.”
