Olacabs To Buy TaxiForSure For USD 200 Million

Olacabs is all set to buy TaxiForSure for an estimated USD 200 million (INR 1,250 crore) to take on other rivals in the taxi service business like Uber.

According to sources, Olacabs is being backed by SoftBank of Japan, will pay cash and offer stock. This will be the second largest buyout after Flipkart bought Myntra, for around USD 370 million.

Although TaxiForSure and Olacabs do not want to comment, the term sheet has been signed already and more details will be brought to light in the next 10 days.

In the global space, taxi aggregators are in talks to form an international alliance against Uber, by inking up regional players like Olacabs, Singapore based GrabTaxi, and San Francisco based Flywheel.

This acquisition could be a problem for Uber because this is an important development in the taxi app business in India, and Uber has no offline presence.

Olacabs, which was co founded by Bhavish Aggarwal and his college mate Ankit Bhati, both IIT-Bombay alumnus, received USD 210 million funding in October by SoftBank.

TaxiForSure has been looking for additional funds for the past two months to keep up with the stiff competition in the Taxi aggregator business, where most are backed up by wealthy people.