Ola Cabs’ Valuation Falls 99% From Peak, Now Valued At Just $70 Million By Vanguard

Ola had at one point been one of India’s most valuable startups, but things have changed dramatically in the last few years.

US asset manager Vanguard has marked down its stake in ANI Technologies — the parent company of Ola Cabs — to a carrying value of roughly $728,000, implying a total company valuation of just $70.3 million. That is a staggering 99% collapse from Ola’s peak valuation of $7.3 billion, reached in December 2021 when the company raised $139 million from investors including Edelweiss and IIFL.

Vanguard first invested approximately $51.7 million in Ola back in 2015, when the company was valued at $5 billion and widely considered India’s answer to Uber. That $51.7 million is now worth less than $1 million on paper.

A Slide That Never Stopped

The markdown didn’t happen overnight. Vanguard has been cutting its fair value estimate of Ola in a slow, steady bleed that has played out over three years:

Each cut reflected a worsening operating picture. The latest is the most brutal by far — a near-total write-off of what was once a prized asset in the Indian startup ecosystem.

The Numbers Are Brutal

Ola’s financials tell the same story the valuation does. Revenue from operations fell 42% to ₹1,171 crore in FY25, down from ₹2,012 crore in FY24. Net losses, meanwhile, doubled to ₹662 crore from ₹329 crore a year earlier. Cash reserves have halved — from ₹1,395 crore in March 2024 to ₹653 crore in March 2025.

The timing could not be worse. Moody’s downgraded ANI Technologies from B3 to Caa1 with a negative outlook in late 2025, flagging weak operating cash flows, rising refinancing risk, and a looming covenant breach on a $65 million loan due in December 2026. To avoid default, Ola must maintain cash reserves of at least $26 million at all times. The ratings agency warned that available cash would “fall substantially short” of meeting both debt service and capex requirements through year-end.

Losing the Road It Built

Ola’s original promise was simple: beat Uber in India. For years, it looked like it might. The company grew to dominate India’s ride-hailing duopoly and at its height was backed by SoftBank, Tiger Global, Temasek, and Warburg Pincus.

That duopoly is gone. Uber now commands around 50% of India’s cab market, and Rapido — which only entered the cab segment in late 2023 — has already carved out a meaningful share. Even Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi acknowledged in 2025 that Rapido, not Ola, had become the company’s primary competition in India.

Ola’s own ride-hailing revenue fell 47% to ₹925 crore in FY25 — a segment that just a year prior was generating ₹1,761 crore. Uber India, by contrast, posted ₹3,849 crore in revenue for the same period.

It wasn’t just domestic competition that hurt Ola. The company had earlier tried to take on Uber on its home turf, expanding to the UK, Australia, and New Zealand — only to shut all those operations down in 2024, retreating entirely to India.

The Broader Ola Empire Is Also Under Pressure

Ola’s troubles aren’t confined to its cab business. Founder Bhavish Aggarwal had built a wider ecosystem around the Ola brand — most notably Ola Electric, which went public in August 2024. But Ola Electric has since seen its stock fall sharply from its peak and lost the top spot in India’s electric two-wheeler market to Bajaj and TVS. It is now raising fresh capital through a qualified institutional placement at a price nearly 50% below its listing valuation.

Aggarwal’s AI bet, Krutrim, has similarly failed to make a dent. By his own admission, the company is nowhere close to global competitors in the space.

IPO Plans, Despite Everything

In an almost defiant move, Ola’s board has approved plans for an IPO — the company’s third attempt at going public after earlier efforts in 2021 and 2024 were shelved. Whether investors will show up for a company with a $70 million external valuation, mounting losses, and a debt covenant on a knife’s edge is a different question entirely.