Ola is doing a good job! Its gross revenue to reach $1-billion by next quarter

Some of the Indian startups such as Flipkart and Snapdeal have already made their mark in the industry in terms of gross revenue earnings. Now, cab aggregator Ola will soon be joining the league. The online cab aggregator might earn gross revenue of $1 billion (Rs 6,364 crore) by the next quarter.

The Bengaluru-based company is expanding rapidly to smaller towns and cities after it has acquired rival TaxiForSure in March. It aims to provide 5 lakh trips every day in the next three months to reach the $1 billion revenue target, three company executives told the Economic Times.

This will make it only the third Indian startup after e-Commerce companies Flipkart and Snapdeal to have crossed the coveted milestone.

"$1 billion run rate looks achievable in the next quarter," said one of the senior executives. According to one of the persons quoted above, Ola, which raised $400 million (Rs 4,456 crore) last month led by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner's DST Global and is preparing for another round of fund raising that could close in the next four months.

"In the next 12 months it will be a $10-billion (Rs 63,640 crore) valuation company," the source said.

However, a spokesman for Ola declined to comment on the latest developments.

The four-year-old company was valued at $2.4 billion in its last round of funding. It has received around $700 million in funding from a slew of marquee investors.

The online cab aggregator has revenue run rate of around $450-500 million. It has to maintain its rapid pace of growth, estimated at over 10% every week, even as it expands to 200 cities in the coming months. The company sources that ET spoke to said both Ola and TaxiForSure together clock up about 2.3 lakh trips per day.

Moreover, Ola's spurt in revenues is being aided by the rapid growth being registered by TaxiFor-Sure — which has doubled revenue in the two months since it was bought by Ola. Earlier this month, TaxiForSure announced that it completed 10 million rides.

Ola has plans to expand its base further as it is also expecting a revenue spurt from new services such as delivery of food, which it introduced earlier this year. It is also looking to tap the grocery business and is training about 90 delivery boys in Bangalore to launch the service.

(Image: Reuters)