Ola raises Rs 400 cr for electric mobility business

Leading ride-hailing cab aggregator Ola on Friday said it raised Rs 400 crore from its early investors, including Tiger Global and Matrix India, to fund its electric mobility business.

"The Rs 400-crore fund from the first round of investment will be used for rolling out one million electric vehicles by 2022 as part of our 'Mission: Electric'," said the city-based app-enabling firm in a statement here.

The nine-year-old firm had set up in 2018 Ola Electric Mobility Ltd to use battery-run cabs as a pilot project at Nagpur in Maharashtra.

"We are running several pilots to deploy electric vehicles and charging solutions, including battery swapping stations, electric two-wheeler and three-wheeler services," said the company in the statement.

Ola executives Anand Shah and Ankit Jain will drive the new business to make electric mobility viable at scale, enabling more clean kilometres on roads across the country.

"Our mission is to enable sustainable mobility for everyone. India can leapfrog problems of pollution and energy security by moving to electric mobility, create hundreds of jobs and economic opportunity," said Ola Co-Founder and Chief Executive Bhavish Aggarwal in the statement.

The company is focused on deploying charging and battery swapping networks in the electric vehicle segment.

"We are also partnering with many OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and battery makers for creating solutions for electric vehicles," he said.

Electric mobility for charging is the first problem in the segment as users will need a dependable, convenient and affordable replacement for the petrol pump.

As Ola's first institutional investors, Tiger partner Lee Fixel said the venture between Ola and its institutional partner makes it a front-runner in this space and well-positioned to build the ecosystem for electric mobility.

"Ola's vision on the role of electric mobility for sustainable development is to make it work at scale. We are privileged to be a partner on this journey," said Matrix India Founder Avinash Bajaj on the occasion.

--IANS

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