Bangalore’s Ola Electric Raises $200 M at $5 B Valuation

Ola Electric on Monday said it has raised over $200 million (about Rs 1,490 crore) from Tekne Private Ventures, Alpine Opportunity Fund, Edelweiss and others, valuing the electric vehicle maker at $5 billion. The funding arrives even as the firm has been struggling with production delays and battery issues in the early batches of  e-scooters it is rolling  off its all woman assembly line. The firm has been ambushed by the global semiconductor shortage as well as issues with its batteries.

In September last year, Ola Electric had announced raising a similar amount in funding from Falcon Edge, SoftBank and others that had valued it at $3 billion.

“Ola Electric is creating India’s EV revolution and is driving cutting edge manufacturing from India for the entire world. With Ola S1, the best scooter ever made, we have changed the entire scooter industry and are now loo- king forward to bringing our innovative products to more two-wheeler categories, including bikes as well as cars.”

“I thank the investors for their support and look forward to partnering with them to take the EV revolution from India to the world,” Ola co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said.

Over the last 12 months, Ola Electric has built its ‘Futurefactory’, which it claims is the world’s largest two-wheeler manufacturing facility, and launched its e-scooters Ola S1 in two variants — S1 and S1 Pro — at Rs 99,999 and Rs 1,29,999, respectively.

In April 2021, Ola unveiled the ‘Hypercharger Network’, a charging network for its upcoming two-wheeler products starting with the Ola Scooter. According to the company, the charging network will be the widest and densest electric two-wheeler charging network in the world, with more than 100,000 charging points across 400 cities.

Last month, in a tweet, Aggarwal said that the Hypercharger roll out had begun. The charging points will be made operational in 6-8 weeks and they will be free for use till end June 22 for all customers, he said. This year, Ola plans to install more than 4,000 charging points for its electric scooters across the country.

Additionally, in the past, Ola Electric has raised funding from various investors, including Tiger Global and Matrix India. Ola’s facility aims to employ over 10,000 women at full capacity and to be the largest women-only factory globally.