Ola presently holds around 9% in Avail Finance and had first invested in the company in 2019. The acquisition will help the cab aggregator bolster its financial services push, according to a prepared statement by Ola.
Avail Finance was founded by Ankush Aggarwal, brother of Ola’s cofounder Bhavish Aggarwal, in 2016. Both the brothers are directors of the company. Avail has raised $38.5 million since its inception and is valued at $87 million, as per data from Tracxn. It currently provides loans to the blue-collar workforce along with offering other financial products across savings, investments and insurance. Ola and Avail have common investors in Matrix Partners and Falcon Edge ( now Alpha Wave Global).
With this acquisition Ola Financial Services will look to strengthen its play in the credit underserved segments comprising the company’s driver partner ecosystem.
Ola will leverage Avail Finance’s capabilities which will strengthen Ola’s lending business and help the mobility venture to expand into neo-banking products, it said. Ola has been looking to expand the scope of its financial services product and has been eyeing a non-banking finance company (NBFC) license.
As a part of the deal, Avail Finance’s leadership team will be joining Ola Financial Services
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Earlier, Avail was in talks to acquire neo-banking platform YeLo last year.
“ With this expansion Ola will be able to cross sell multiple lending products to its large driver partner base; providing them a one stop destination for all their financial needs,” the company said in a statement.
Last year, Ola invested nearly Rs 800 crore into its financial services business and claims to have 40 million customers for its buy-now-pay-later product, Ola Postpaid. It has also entered the vehicle financing business with NBFC partnerships, after the launch of its electric scooter.
