Ola’s financials services arm raises ₹200 crore, CEO Nitin Gupta quits
2 min read 26 May 2020, 09:11 PM ISTOla Financial Services is currently in fundraising mode, and it will look to secure additional equity financing in the following months, said the second person aware of Ola’s operations asking not to be named
PremiumOla Financial Services Pvt Ltd, the financial services arm of cab-hailing platform Ola has raised fresh funding of ₹200 crore from Matrix Partners and Flacon Edge in its on-going funding round, said two people aware of the development.
Separately, the financial services arm’s chief executive Nitin Gupta resigned from his position on Tuesday.
Ola Financial Services is currently in fundraising mode, and it will look to secure additional equity financing in the following months, said the second person aware of Ola’s operations asking not to be named.
Ola’s financial services arm was spun off from its parent entity ANI Technologies Pvt Ltd last year, as the company setoff to expand vertically into the payments and financial services segment. Currently Ola Financials Services Pvt Ltd. houses the mobile payments and wallet product, Ola Money.
Currently, Ola has five different businesses segment including cab and auto bookings; cab-leasing (Ola Fleet); electric vehicles (Ola Electric); food delivery (Ola Foods); payments and financial services (Ola Financial Services).
The fresh fund infusions into Ola Financial Services Pvt Ltd. comes at a time when the country has been battling covid-19 with stringent lockdown measures. The pandemic has globally affected revenues of businesses in the mobility and hospitality space, as people stayed indoors.
This week, Ola had announced that it is laying off over 1,400 employees, affecting around 35% of its total workforce in the country, while its competitor Uber also let go off around 600 employees in India on Tuesday.
Apart from the funding, Nitin Gupta, chief executive of Ola Financial Services (OFS) also resigned from his position, according to an internal email seen by Mint. The email penned down by Ola’s chief executive Bhavish Aggarwal to his employees announced Gupta’s departure from the company on Tuesday.
Gupta had earlier co-founded PayU India, and joined OFS as its CEO in December 2017. He will be temporarily replaced by Harish Abhichandani, who has taken over as interim CEO, the email added.
“Harish Abhichandani will take over from Nitin as interim CEO of OFS. Harish has successfully donned the business hat as the Head of our UK operations as well in the past, in addition to CFO role and I’m looking forward to working with him,"
“The financial services space in India and in our global markets is significantly underserved due to weak distribution, low trust, and complicated products. We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to change this with the reach and capabilities of our core ride-sharing platform as well as by building products and services that are truly consumer first and innovations in this space in even more relevant," said the email written by Aggarwal.
