Can We Invest In Ola Electric?

“As far as Ola is concerned, we are focused and determined to build a business that can sustain and be impactful.”

Bhavish Aggarwal has earned a reputation for upending the country's ride-hailing market for over a decade. Ola, Aggarwal's 11-year-old ride-hailing startup launched three years after graduating from college, quickly established a foothold in one of the world's major ride-hailing marketplaces and progressively grew into a force to be reckoned with.

While the ride-hailing company is gradually reviving, the astute Aggarwal has also utilised the last few months to expand Ola's operations into India's budding electric car market.

"The necessity to change transportation to electric is clear, and we can see the impact of pollution, therefore we must design for the future paradigm, we must build for future technology, and mobility must be electric," he mentioned in an interview.

Since then, the company has been moving at a breakneck pace, and in less than nine months since announcing plans to build the world's largest two-wheeler factory, Aggarwal launched the company's first two-wheelers—the Ola S1 and Ola S1 Pro—in the hope that they will help kickstart India's long-awaited electric vehicle revolution.

But with the rising hype around electric vehicles, Can we Invest in OLA Electric?

The electric vehicle maker led by Bhavish Agarwal obtained $100 million in loan funding from Bank of Baroda last month to finance and close phase 1 of the Ola future plant. The firm, however, has transferred the full sum to Ola Electric Technologies, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ola Electric Mobility that was formed in June to produce two, three, and now apparently four-wheeler electric cars.

Ola's electric two-wheeler manufacturing unit is in negotiations with strategic and financial investors to raise $1 billion. It has retained investment firm JP Morgan to assist in raising the fresh round of funding. The investment bank has now approached numerous private equity groups about investing in the maker of electric vehicles. Recently, Ola Electric has secured more than $200 million in funding from SoftBank Group, Falcon Edge, and others at a $3 billion valuation in advance.

Aggarwal said in an interview that both of his firms, Ola Cabs and Ola Electric, are set to file for an initial public offering (IPO) next year; which is why currently we cannot invest in OLA Electric.

What is the status of Ola's IPO plans?

"Our mobility business (Ola) and our electric business (Ola Electric) are both independent organisations," Bhavesh said in an interview. "Both are critical to our objective of driving the world's transition to sustainable mobility," he added.

"Our mobility business continues to develop at a quick pace, delivering the greatest and safest ride-hailing experience to consumers globally, even more so now as consumer choice changes away from public transportation owing to the pandemic; Both of these modes of transportation, ride hailing and electric, are important for truly transitioning the globe to sustainable mobility.” he concluded.

Will it use the SPAC method to list its initial public offering on a US stock exchange?

While SPACs (Special Purpose Acquisition Companies) are the current trend, we are proudly Indian and will have a more traditional initial public offering "he made reference to. "While we do not yet have a precise date to announce, it is clearly on the horizon for the mid-term," he expressed hope.