Ola Raises Fresh $11 Mn from DIG Investment, Deshe Holdings and Founders Jabbar Internet Group

Within a week after Ola Electric, the EV unit of cab aggregator Ola, had raised ~ US$250 million funding from SoftBank, Ola's parent company ANI Technologies has raised $11 million in fresh funding from a set of new investors including Swedish DIG Investment Ab, US-based Deshe Holdings and the two founders of Dubai-based Jabbar Internet Group, reported Economic Times, citing business intelligence platform Paper.vc.

Regulatory filings accessed by Paper.vc showed that the latest funding is part of Ola’s ongoing Series-J round. Ola has said it plans to raise close to $1 billion as part of its ongoing fundraising exercise.

Ola has been raising funds in tranches as part of its plan to raise $1 billion in fresh funds. The company had earlier secured $100 million from Sachin Bansal in January this year in its ongoing Series J round, which was also Bansal’s first major investment after his exit from Flipkart.

Two months back, Ola had raised undisclosed amount from Ratan Tata, who is also an investor in Ola.

The Indian cab-hailing firm is also setting up a advance technology center in Silicon Valley of the U.S to develop technologies related to electric/ connected/ autonomous vehicles. The tech center by Ola will be in Palo Alto in the Bay Area and Ola will be the second Indian consumer internet company to launch a technology center in Silicon Valley after Flipkart.

Ex-Flipkart Colleagues' Retail Tech Startup Arzooo.com Raises $1 Mn from Jabbar Internet Group

Bangalore-based Arzooo.com, a fast retail technology venture enabling brick & mortar retailers to compete with online stores with its flagship "Go Store" platform, has raised US$1 Million in Pre-Series A round of funding led by Jabbar Internet Group of Dubai.

Arzooo.com plans to use the freshly raied funds in expanding its geographic presence pan India and will invest a substantial part of the funds in product enhancement, new talent recruitment and improvement of Go Store technology to encompass a wider network of cross sector retailers.

Founded by ex-Flipkart colleagues and IIT Kharagpur alumni - Khushnud Khan and Rishi Raj Rathore, Arzooo enables a partner store with its technology platform equipping them to offer largest selection to customers without having to invest in Inventory, creating most competitive price and offering attractive payment solutions to improve sales conversion in-store.

Arzooo’s tech platform “Go Store” has on-boarded physical retailers across 3 major cities of Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. The platform's unique technology offering solves the big problem of selection, price and complex supply chain & sourcing for Offline retailers. With this platform, Arzooo.com is equipping the physical retailers to compete and grow in the age of Amazon & Walmart. It e­­­­­nables a partner store to offer its customers the largest selection, best prices and fastest delivery, without them having to stock every item.

While Arzooo.com's co-founder Khushnud was an Associate Director (Large Appliances) at Flipkart between 2012-2016, Rishi, an IIT Kharagpur alumni, was a product manager in Flipkart for 2015-16, where he was leading hyperlocal grocery and logistics platforms and had started Flipkart’s hyperlocal delivery segment for food and grocery deliveries. He had built FQuick, a hyperlocal logistics platform, there.

Commencing with the $48 billion Consumer Electronics market in India, Arzooo Go Store is disrupting the sector by digitizing the retailers on its Go Store platform. With this, retailers who command 90% of the consumer base (who prefer on-ground touch and feel of large appliances as a preferred mode of purchase) are able to convert a growing number of them into sales from in-store walk-ins. This is without investment on storage space, stocking or logistics for the physical retailer who has the potential to cross sell across categories via this platform.

Commencing with the Consumer Electronics retail category, Arzooo.com has plans to expand into other retail categories by integrating 500,000 retailers by 2022. The company currently has 500 partner stores on its platform and intends to own 20% of the consumer electronics market share by 2020.

The online marketplace comprising 7-8% of consumer electronics retail between Amazon and Flipkart who offer price and large selection advantage to the end consumer. This has been a limiting factor for the physical retailer who faces challenges of limited choice of inventory and sourcing prices have led to an impact on profitability for the physical retailers. Arzooo.com via the Go Store platform solves the problem of Price, Selection and Storage for the physical retailer via its technology that bridges the gap of a single point product sourcing from manufacturers and an expansive product offering via the digital catalogue.

Launched in 2009, Jabbar Investment Group is a leading investor in the MENA region and is known for some of biggest exits in the region that include maktoob.com, Yahoo, Souq.com and Amazon. Jabbar is also an investor in Mumbai based Hopscotch, a babycare and kids products e-commerce startup [Refer].