Ola Raises Rs 400 Crores in Funding for Electric Mobility Plan

Ola Electric Mobility, the company backed by Indian car aggregator Ola, announced on Friday that it has successfully raised Rs. 400 crores (roughly $56.4 million) in a funding round led by several of Ola’s early investors including Tiger Global and Matrix India.

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This was the first round of investment for Ola Electric, which reportedly is running several pilots to deploy electric vehicles and charging solutions. The funding will help Ola who in 2018 said that it has plans to bring 1 million electric vehicles to Indian roads within a few years.

In a statement, Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder & CEO, Ola said, “At Ola Electric, our mission is to enable sustainable mobility for everyone. India can leapfrog problems of pollution and energy security by moving to electric mobility, create millions of new jobs and economic opportunity, and lead the world.” He added, “I’m excited to partner with Lee and Avnish again, and look forward to recreating a very successful partnership and a transformative business!”

Anand Shah, Head of Ola Electric Mobility said, “The first problem to solve in electric mobility is charging: users need a dependable, convenient, and affordable replacement for the petrol pump. By making electric easy for commercial vehicles that deliver a disproportionate share of kilometres travelled, we can jumpstart the electric vehicle revolution.”

The new business will be led by Ola executives Anand Shah and Ankit Jain, who will have an independent charter to develop platforms and infrastructure to make electric mobility at scale.

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Lee Fixel, Partner, Tiger Global Management added, “We are excited to invest in Ola Electric Mobility, which we believe is the early front-runner in this space and well-positioned to build the ecosystem for electric mobility. As Ola’s first institutional investors, we are excited to begin this new journey with Ola Electric and partner in creating yet another impactful mobility business.” Avnish Bajaj, Founder and MD, Matrix India also said, “We couldn’t be more excited in repeating our successful early partnership with Ola, with our investment in Ola Electric Mobility.”

In November, NTPC signed MoUs with seven car aggregators including Ola for development and utilization of public EV charging infrastructure. The announcement about funding comes a day after India’s cabinet approved a scheme to spend Rs 10,000 crores to subsidize sales of electric and hybrid vehicles as part of efforts to curb pollution and reduce dependency on fossil fuels.