Ola Electric raises over $200 million at valuation of $5 billion from Tekne Private Ventures, Edelweiss, others

Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal.

Ola Electric has raised over $200 million at a valuation of $5 billion from Tekne Private Ventures, Alpine Opportunity Fund, Edelweiss, and others. The SoftBank-backed company had raised over $660 million till December last year.

Ola Electric, which was spun out of the ride-hailing major Ola in 2019, has been facing a lot of backlash from customers after it started its deliveries in mid-December. Moneycontrol was the first to report on the issues which customers were facing including damaged vehicles with cracks and dents all over the body, lower mileage (range), delayed charger installations, and discrepancy in insurance policy among others.

Last week, the company also announced that customers who bought the S1 scooter are automatically being upgraded to the S1 Pro, free of cost.

In a press statement, Bhavish Aggarwal, founder & CEO, Ola said, “Ola Electric is creating India’s EV revolution and is driving cutting edge manufacturing from India for the entire world. With Ola S1, the best scooter ever made, we’ve changed the entire scooter industry and are now looking forward to bringing our innovative products to more two-wheeler categories including bikes as well as cars.

The new funding comes at a time when the firm plans to go for a public market debut next year. Earlier in December, it raised $500 million in debt financing from marquee international institutional investors.

Prior to this, Ola Electric had raised about $52.7 million (Rs 398.3 crore) from investors such as Temasek, IIFL, Edelweiss, Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s VSS Investco and DST Global's Rahul Mehta. This financing came a couple of months after it raised $200 million led by Falcon Edge, SoftBank, and others.