Ola Cabs merges with Foodpanda in India

Uber rival Ola Cabs has merged with food-delivery platform Foodpanda India, taking control from Delivery Hero Group of Germany.

Under the terms of the deal, as well as a handover of shares, Ola has committed to investing US$200 million into Foodpanda’s India business.

With Foodpanda India CEO Saurabh Kochhar having moved on, Ola founding partner Pranay Jivrajka will be interim CEO.

Rocket Internet-backed Delivery Hero last year pulled out of Indonesia after tough competition, while Foodpanda wound up its Vietnam business in 2015 and scaled back in India.

“The partnership with Ola will allow us to further consolidate markets where it strategically makes sense to collaborate with local players,” says Delivery Hero CEO/co-founder Niklas Östberg.

The acquisition comes shortly after Ola raised $1.1 billion in funding from Japanese telco SoftBank Group and Chinese internet giant Tencent.

Uber Eats launched in India a few months ago.