Hyundai In Talks To Invest $300 Million In Ola — Uber Better Watch Its Back

South Korean carmaker Hyundai is in advance talks with Ola as it looks to invest into the Indian ride-sharing service. The news of the investment talks was first reported by Entrackr, which claims that two rounds of discussions have already taken place between the companies.

Entrackr, quoting its sources, claims that Hyundai is looking to invest up to $300 Million (Rs 21.01 billion) in Ola. The publication's sources also claimed that the talks were expected to bear fruit within the next six weeks. The source stated that the size of the investment by Hyundai in Ola could vary between $200 - 300 million (Rs 14.01 - 21.01 billion). ET Auto following up on the same story claims that such an investment could give Hyundai a 4 per cent stake in the Indian ride-sharing app, which in turn could value Ola at over $6 billion (Rs 420 billion).

This will not be the first time that Hyundai has invested in India's vehicle-based services ecosystem. In August last year, Hyundai led a $14.3 million (Rs 1 billion) Series B round of investment into Gurugram-based car rental startup, Revv.

Carmakers investing into Indian automotive-based service platforms is nothing new. Both Mahindra and American automotive giant Ford have backed Indian car rental service Zoomcar by investing into the service multiple times. Toyota too dipped its foot into the Indian automotive startup scene last year when it led $30 million dollars (Rs 2.1 billion) worth of investment into Droom, the used automobile marketplace.

However, Entrackr claims that what really makes this upcoming Hyundai-Ola investment really interesting is the fact that Ola's electric mobility Arm, Ola Electric recently got invest worth $56 million (Rs 4 billion). The site claims that Ola has reportedly committed to bringing 1 million electric vehicles into its fleet of cabs by 2021.

Hyundai itself is quite bullish about electric cars and Entrackr claims the carmaker is reportedly investing over $1 billion (approximately Rs 70.07 billion) into its Sriperumbudur facility in Tamil Nadu in order to manufacture electric cars in India. Hyundai's first-ever electric car for the Indian market is expected to arrive in the second half of 2019 in the form of the Kona electric SUV. Hyundai-owned carmaker Kia is also expected to bring electric vehicles into the sub-continent and is reportedly working on an electric-SUV especially for India.