Bhavish Aggarwal Pledges Additional 5.88 Cr Ola Electric Shares For Krutrim Debt

Months after Ola Electric founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal pledged the company’s shares to raise debt for Krutrim, he has pledged an additional 5.88 Cr shares of the EV major to raise additional debt for the AI unicorn.

In an exchange filing, the EV major informed that Aggarwal signed a non-disposal undertaking for the additional shares in relation to debentures issued by Krutrim on February 21 and February 24 to Avendus Structured Credit Fund II, Avendus Finance Private Limited, lncred Credit Opportunities Fund I and II and India Credit Opportunities Fund II. 

With this, Aggarwal has pledged about 2.43% shares of Ola Electric, or 8.09% of his shareholding in the company, to raise capital for Krutrim. 

As per Ola Electric’s share price of INR 56.40 today, the pledged shares are valued at INR 604.44 Cr. 

As per the filing, Aggarwal’s shares in the company are currently locked-in. Upon the expiry of the lock-in over the promoter shares, Aggarwal will create a pledge over a portion of the shares. As of now, he has given a non-disposal undertaking for over 10.72 Cr equity shares to Axis Trustee Services. 

“Further, upon the expiry of the lock-in over the promoters shares, the promoter will create a pledge over a portion of promoter shares and make relevant disclosures in accordance with applicable laws,” the filing said.

The development comes almost a month after Aggarwal announced an investment of INR 2,000 Cr in Krutrim, with a commitment of INR 10,000 Cr by next year.

Krutrim’s last announced fundraise was of $50 Mn in January 2024 at a valuation north of $1 Bn. Prior to that, the startup had raised $24 Mn debt from Z47 in October 2023. 

On the operational function, Aggarwal took to X yesterday to announce that Krutrim has partnered with Lenovo to build India’s largest supercomputer. “Need much more to bring in the AI revolution to India at scale! All in to make this happen soon,” his post read. 

Ola group’s chief information officer (CIO) Navendu Agarwal said that the said supercomputer will be powered by Krutrim’s cloud offerings. 

He also reiterated that the AI unicorn is also building its own “foundational models” and a chip. The startup has also filed a proposal for building an indigenous foundational AI model under the INR 10,000 Cr+ IndiaAI Mission. 

Meanwhile, Ola Electric is struggling with increasing losses, rising competition, and falling share prices. Since the time when Aggarwal first pledged shares of the company to raise funds for Krutrim, the stock has tanked more than 40%. 

For the quarter ended December 31, 2024, the EV maker saw a near 15% decline in sales to 84,029 units from 98,619 units sold in the previous quarter. This also marked a 3% year-on-year (YoY) decline from 86,775 units. 

On the back of the decline in sales, the company’s net loss widened 50% YoY and 14% sequentially to INR 376 Cr in the quarter. Revenue from operations dipped 19% to INR 1,045 Cr during the quarter under review from INR 1,296 Cr in Q3 FY24. Sequentially, it fell 14% from INR 1,214 Cr. 

Amid all these, the company is taking a number of measures to cut costs, including layoffs and contract renegotiations with partners.

Shares of Ola Electric ended Thursday’s (March 6) trading session 0.93% lower at INR 56.40 on the BSE.