On Monday, Ola Electric announced a new funding round of $200 million bringing the ride-hailing giant’s valuation to $5 million from $3 billion in September last year. The funding round saw the participation of Tekne Private Ventures, Alpine Opportunity Fund, and Edelweiss.
The company will use the funds to advance its efforts of delivering its maiden electric scooter to customers and expand its efforts into other categories including cars. The company first announced its first electric scooter, Ola S1, which houses a battery and offers a range of 121 kilometres or 75 miles, last year. The company also mentioned a price of $1,350 for the S1 model.
Two-wheelers make up more than three-fourths of the total number of vehicles sold in India and the country’s drive towards electric vehicles comes at a time when there are favourable regulations in the country as well as government incentives. The number of startups in the category is also on the rise and that is a good thing, especially for end-users as they will have a variety to choose from in terms of price and specification. A recent report by analysts at UBS mentioned that by the end of the decade, an estimated 37 percent of two-wheelers in the country would be electric-powered, but a lot of things need to be put in place for this to happen.
In a statement by Ola Electric’s co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal, he said that “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 Electric has, however, received backlash as it has delayed the shipment of the S1 model various times and up till now, only a small number of customers pre-ordered the vehicle have received it. The company has also started seeing competition from other electric vehicle makers. For instance, Bounce, a startup based in Bengaluru has already unveiled an electric scooter. Analysts even say that the scooter may be way better than what Ola Electric has to offer.
Ibhadojemu Lucky Emmanuel is a graduate of Education and Economics from the University of Benin. He has a passion for tech and business and has been writing professionally for over a period of five years. He's written across various topics and segments and knew tech-business was it when he first stumbled on it. He has a great passion for music and arts, and wants to visit as many countries as he can someday.
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