Bhavish Aggarwal-Led Ola Electric Mops Up $200 Mn At $3 Bn Valuation

Ola Electric Scooter Production Faces Hurdles Due To Chip Shortage

SUMMARY

The investment led by Falcon Edge, Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank and other existing investors

The capital infusion will allow the startup to continue the development of other vehicle platforms including electric motorbike, mass market scooter and its electric car

The investment also comes on the heels of Ola Electric claiming to have sold $150 Mn worth electric scooters within two days of the sale

Bhavish Aggarwal-led Ola Electric has raised $200 Mn in a new round of funding. The new round takes the valuation of the four-year-old startup to $3 Bn. The funding round was led by Falcon Edge, Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank and other existing investors.

The capital infusion will allow the startup to continue its development of other vehicle platforms including electric motorbike, mass-market scooter and its electric car.

The investment also comes on the heels of Ola Electric claiming to have sold $150 Mn worth electric scooters within two days of the launch.

Founded in 2017, Ola Electric entered the celebrated unicorn club within two years of its launch after it raised $250 Mn from Masayoshi Son-led SoftBank. The EV unicorn has raised a little more than $500 Mn to date.

Ola Electric with its electric scooter competes against Bengaluru-based Ather Energy, Hero, Revolt, TVS, Simple Energy among others.

Ola Electric launched the live sale of its two electric scooters – S1 and S1Pro on September 15 after the initial date of launch was postponed due to a website glitch.

Ola Electric announced its S1 at ex-showroom price of INR 99,999 and its top variant S1 pro at INR 129,999. The prices will vary depending on the state a customer is purchasing.

While the S1 variant gets a range of 121 Km in a single charge, the top model will be able to cover 181 Km in a single charge. Both the scooters have a 7-inch touchscreen display and come in 10 colors.

In terms of battery, Ola S1 is powered by a 2.95 kWh lithium-ion battery and the S1 Pro will include a 3.97 kWh lithium-ion battery. Both the batteries come with a three-year unlimited-KM warranty.

Spread across 500 acres, the startup’s Future Factory is being built in Tamil Nadu and is entirely run by 10,000 women employees.

Phase 1 of the factory is constructed and the startup is at present undergoing production trials. The startup claims that at full capacity the future factory has the ability to manufacture 10 Mn EV scooters in a year.