Ride-hailing service Ola ties up with Microsoft for connected car platform

By Sankalp Phartiyal and Aditya Kalra

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian ride-hailing company Ola has tied up with Microsoft to build a new connected-vehicle platform and will also use the U.S tech giant's Azure cloud-computing service to power its in-car entertainment offering, it said on Tuesday.

The platform will help with a vehicle's diagnostics, predictive maintenance and navigation, Bengaluru-headquartered Ola said in a statement.

"Both companies will collaborate to take this platform to car manufacturers globally to integrate with vehicle systems," it said.

Microsoft is also in talks over potential investment in Ola, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. The U.S. company's CEO Satya Nadella is currently in India.

Indian newspaper Mint reported in July that Microsoft was looking to invest up to $100 million in Ola parent ANI Technologies. (https://goo.gl/akiUL2)

Ola last month raised $1.1 billion from investors led by China's Tencent Holdings and Japan's SoftBank Group and said it was in "advanced talks with other investors" for a further $1 billion.

The funding from Microsoft could be part of this second tranche, the source said, adding that Ola will switch completely from the Amazon Web Services cloud platform to Microsoft Azure over the next few quarters.

A spokesman for Ola said there are no fundraising talks in progress with Microsoft at this time.

(Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal and Aditya Kalra; Editing by David Goodman)