Ola in funding talks with Naspers

South African internet conglomerate Naspers LLC is in talks to invest in ANI Technologies Pvt Ltd, which owns ride hailing company Ola, at a valuation of $7-8 billion. Besides Naspers, Ola is also in talks with Singapore′s Temasek Holdings Pvt Ltd and two other funds to raise $1 billion in fresh capital. Ola, which is currently valued at about $4 billion, may see its valuation double after the proposed funding round. Last October, Ola had raised $1.1 billion from SoftBank Group Corp. and Tencent Holdings Ltd, among others. It had announced back then that it would raise $1 billion more. However, the company's proposed funding has faced hurdles over concerns related to a boardroom battle between Ola chief executive Bhavish Aggarwal and SoftBank and Tiger Global. Aggarwal had blocked a proposed sale of shares by Tiger Global to SoftBank late last year to stop the Japanese investor from raising its stake. The Singaporean investor is already in the process of becoming a shareholder in Ola through a secondary deal worth over $200 million. Once that deal is completed, Temasek will invest primary capital in Ola at a much higher valuation.