India’s homegrown cab hailing major Ola is reportedly holding discussion to acquire transportation app Ridlr. The acquisition of this app will supposedly help the ride-hailing major to improve its navigation technology and offer better services to all its riders.
Ridlr app offers real-time traffic information to users and also enables commuters to books tickets for public transportations. Ridlr had last raised funds in July 2016 when Times Internet, Matrix Partners and Qualcomm Ventures decided to pump in $6 million in the startup.
Both Ola and Ridlr have declined to comment on the news report.
If Ola does acquire Ridlr app, it would mark major departure for the ride-hailing major as despite being a unicorn the company is not known for making acquisitions. Ola’s biggest acquisition till date has been Foodpanda app (acquired last year) and its small regional rival TaxiForSure (acquired in March 2015)
Ola’s low profile presence on acquisition front stands in complete contrast to other unicorns like Flipkart, Paytm and Quikr. These high profile unicorns have so far acquired several promising startups in a bid to undo the competition and achieve faster growth.
India’s homegrown cab hailing company is currently locked in a cut-throat battle with Uber. The competition between these two companies has become so intense that both companies continuously try to adopt innovative strategies in order to outdo each other.
Both high profile companies have a common investor in the form of SoftBank, which is actually the largest investor in both these companies. This has actually fuelled the rumours that SoftBank may push for a merger between these two arch-rivals. These rumours have gained currency after the Japanese investment giant successfully convinced Uber to sell off its loss-making Southeast Asian business to the regional rival Grab.
