BANGALORE: Taxi service aggregator Olacabs has raised $210 million from Japan’s SoftBank Corp at a valuation of nearly $1 billion (Rs 6,100 crore), people familiar with the development said, as it joins the league of India’s most valuable startups and squares off against Uber as well as other venture-funded cab service marketplaces.An announcement could be made as early as next week, when SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son visits India and makes official his group’s investments of over $1 billion in Indian startups. ET reported that online retailer Snapdeal is in line to snag $650 million and mobile marketplace Paytm up to $300 million from the Japanese conglomerate which booked an estimated $5 billion gain from the IPO of Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba last month. “The company is valued close to $1 billion,” a source said, referring to Olacabs, which was founded in January 2011 by IIT-Bombay alumni Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati.Olacabs declined to comment. Soft-Bank did not reply to an email seeking its view. Olacabs started life in Mumbai but is now based in Bangalore.It is backed by Sequoia Capital, Hong Kong’s Steadview Capital and Tiger Global . Kunal Bahl, the cofounder of Snapdeal, is an angel investor in the company. The funding is an important milestone for Indian startups that are increasingly gaining the attention of deep-pocketed global investors looking to cash in on India’s entrepreneurial prowess and the country’s vast market opportunity.Online retail has grabbed most of the attention and money so far—market leader Flipkart alone has raised $1.2 billion this year—but taxi marketplaces and realty portals are expected to be where the next battles to gain consumers and market share will be fought. An indication of the rising interest in the taxi aggregation market is the fact that Olacabs raised Rs 250 crore only in July, when it was valued at Rs 1,000 crore. What has also excited investors is the entry into India of Uber, the cab hailing app that has been making waves across the world.San-Francisco based Uber, which is barely four years old raised $1.2 billion, at a valuation of $18 billion, in June this year. Uber entered India in August 2013 and has been recruiting taxi owners rapidly. Jaspal Singh, the cofounder of Valoriser Consultants which provides market research services for transportation companies, said the funding and valuation of Olacabs are an indication that investors are betting on rapid growth prospects. “Their longterm strategy is to expand the market size by attracting first-time riders and enter into new geographies,” he said. Over two million taxis are registered in India and the market is estimated to be worth over $7 billion.Companies like Olacabs do not operate their own taxis but provide the technology platform that links taxi owners with passengers. Ola, which is launching its service in one city every two weeks, claims to have around 33,000 cars on its platform. In about three and ahalf years, it has built a presence in 19 cities so far. The latest funding for Olacabs is likely to put pressure on Taxiforsure, its main Indian competitor which has also raised an estimated $50 million this year. Taxiforsure, cofounded by IIM-Ahmedabad alumni Aprameya Radhakrishna and Raghunandan G, is backed by Accel Partners, Bessemer Venture and Helion Venture