Earlier there were reports that Japanese telecom and Internet giant SoftBank was looking to invest up to US$300 million in Ola

Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal

Software giant Microsoft is in talks to invest between US$50 million and US$100 million in Indian cab-hailing company Ola, said a Live Mint report citing unnamed sources. The talks are still in the early stages, and once materialised, Ola will migrate from Amazon’s cloud platform AWS to Microsoft’s Azure, the report added.

While this partnership could give Ola the much-needed capital to further intensify its competition against close rival Uber, for Microsoft it is more than money and is more about its CEO Satya Nadella’s vision of partnering with more and more large technology companies in India and establish Azure as service of preference.

Earlier there were reports that Japanese telecom and Internet giant SoftBank was looking to invest up to US$300 million in Ola. It was part of the company’s plans to raise a total of US$500 million. It is not immediately clear if this funding has already materialised or not.

Microsoft has been eyeing the fast-growing Indian startup market for a few months now. Recently, it participated in the US$1.4 billion funding round of Flipkart, along with Tencent Holdings and eBay. A few weeks before this deal, Microsoft signed a cloud services partnership with the e-commerce player.

Also Read: Ola, Uber asked to stop ride-sharing service in Bangalore

Ola, founded in Jan 2011 by IIT Bombay alumni Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, is an online cab and auto rickshaw booking platform. Using the Ola app, users across 100 cities can book from over 100,000 vehicles. The Ola app is currently available on Windows, Android and iOS platforms.

Two years ago, Ola raised US$500 million in its Series F round of funding, led by UK-based investment firm Baillie Gifford. Existing investors Falcon Edge Capital, Tiger Global, SoftBank Group, and DST Global, aside from Chinese mobile transportation giant Didi Kuaidi, had also participated.

In December 2015, leading on-demand taxi hailing companies Didi Kuaidi, Ola, Lyft and GrabTaxi joined forces to give global giant Uber a run for its money. Under this partnership, the four taxi-hailing leaders would enable international travellers to access local on-demand rides by using the same application, even if they use in their respective countries. Through this, the firms aimed to cover a major part of Southeast Asia, India, China and the US, starting in the first quarter of 2016.

The company has been locked in a bitter battle with Uber, which has aggressively been expanding in India, the second fastest-growing market in the globe, ever since its arrival to the Indian streets in 2012. Ola had several run-ins with the US company over nationality and pricing, and both also had some fights with the government over regulatory hurdles. Early last month, Ola alleged that Uber was attempting “to trivialise a horrific” rape incident involving its driver by dragging the Mumbai-based firm into the controversy.

Both the firms claim supremacy over others, but most users have now started preferring Uber for the quality of services and the fleet.

Uber recently introduced uberMOTO, which aims to give riders motorcycle ride at the push of a button, through the Uber app. Riders receive driver and bike details just as they do for other Uber rides, as well as all standard safety features before, during and after the ride including GPS tracking, two-way feedback and the ability to share trip details with family and friends. Uber also recently launched its food delivery service UberEATS in India, which enables registered users to order food from its partner restaurants and get it delivered at their home.

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