Ola To Set Up US Tech Centre To Develop Next-Gen Mobility Tech

Bengaluru-based ride-hailing unicorn Ola has spread its wings to the United States of America to develop the next-generation technologies. The company will set up Advanced Technology Centre in San Francisco Bay area and will be building a team of over 150 engineers.

The centre is part of Ola’s global initiatives to further drive mobility-led transformation to billions across the world. The Advanced Technology Centre will look to onboard world-class talent who will collaborate closely with global teams in the various geographies where Ola operates.

The centre will build cutting-edge technology solutions to accelerate Ola’s ambitions across electric mobility and connected vehicles as well as lead futuristic experiments like autonomous vehicles.

To support this, Ola is looking to hire experts across Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Sciences, Engineering and Product Development.

Ankit Bhati, cofounder and CTO said, “The Valley and the talent ecosystem here are very conducive to the development of next-generation mobility solutions. This is also a big step in our journey as a global mobility player, with a mission that talent from around the world are inspired to join us on.”

Founded by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati in January 2011, Ola is now offering its services across 50 cities in India, UK, Australia and New Zealand. The company claims to complete over a billion rides annually with its over 1.5 Mn drivers.

What began as an offering of car hailing, has expanded into car pooling services and more. The company works across:

• Electric mobility unit Ola Electric
• Fleet management business, Ola Fleet Technologies
• Public transportation ticketing app, Ridlr
• Ola Financial Services that includes micro-insurance products and a range of payment solutions including a credit card
• Ola’s Food brands delivered to customers, directly from its vast network of dark kitchens

The company has raised over $3.8 Bn from marquee investors such as SoftBank, Ratan Tata, Hyundai Motor Company, Kia Motors, Sachin Bansal and others. However, as the company seeks to close another $2 Bn funding round, it is struggling to avoid SoftBank from increasing its stake in the company.

With planned experiments in electric mobility, self driving, and two wheelers rentals at the tech centre in the US, it joins the club of the likes of Paytm with these centres. Paytm had set up Paytm Labs in Toronto, Canada, “to build better data centric products”.