Taxi service provider Olacabs has raised $210 million from Japan's SoftBank Corp at a valuation of nearly $1 billion, reports the Economic Times.

According to the report 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. Olacabs raised Rs 250 crore only in July, when it was valued at Rs 1,000 crore.

The taxi marketplace portal in India was revved up by the entry of Uber in India, 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 Co-Founder of Valoriser Consultants told the Economic Times that the funding and valuation of Olacabs are an indication that investors are betting on rapid growth prospects. "Their long term strategy is to 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. 

Olacabs, 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 a half years, it has built a presence in 19 cities so far.

Founded in January 2011 by IIT-Bombay alumni Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, Olacabs started off in Mumbai but is now based in Bangalore. The company is backed by Sequoia Capital, Hong Kong's Steadview Capital and Tiger Global. Kunal Bahl, the Co-Founder of Snapdeal, is an angel investor in the company.

Its main Indian competitor Taxiforsure has also raised an estimated $50 million this year.