Ola names former Amazon India executive Arun Sirdeshmukh as Ola Cars CEO

Ola EV can now be booked in London

Mobility platform Ola on October 7 appointed Arun Sirdeshmukh as the chief executive officer of its vehicle commerce platform Ola Cars whose launch was also made official during the day.

In this role, Sirdeshmukh will oversee the entire sales and distribution, service, marketing, customer support, and go-to-market strategy for the business.

He comes with over 30 years of experience in consumer internet, FMCG, retail and fashion industries, having worked in companies like Amazon India, Reliance Trends and IBM Global Services.

"With Ola Cars, we are bringing a completely new experience for buying, selling and overall ownership for both new and owned vehicles. I look forward to working with Arun and building this core pillar of our New Mobility vision," Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said.

Ola Cars will allow consumers to purchase both new and pre-owned vehicles through the Ola app. It will also offer a bouquet of services to customers, starting with purchase, vehicle finance and insurance, registration, maintenance including vehicle health diagnostics and service, accessories and resale of the vehicle back to Ola Cars.

The company said it will start with pre-owned cars and over time open it up for new vehicles from Ola Electric and other brands.

On September 23, Aggarwal had stated plans to open up its retail platform to other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for digital distribution while outlining his vision for the future of mobility.

Available in 30 cities, Ola plans to scale up this platform to 100 cities by next year.

"We have plans to expand aggressively over the next few months across India and international markets and also launch new verticals in this business including pre-owned 2W and new vehicles" said Sirdeshmukh.

This platform is part of Ola's larger New Mobility vision that comprises New Mobility Services, New Energy Vehicles and New Auto Retail.

New Mobility Services aims to expand operations form from 150 to 500 cities and increase the reach from 100 million to 500 million people.

New Energy Vehicles aims at EVs for affordable transportation and New Auto Retail will improve the lifecycle of vehicle ownership for a customer.

This diversification comes as the Bengaluru-based firm gears up for its market debut and its core ride-hailing business recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic.

On October 5, Ola acquired GeoSpoc, a Pune-based provider of geospatial services, to develop technologies that will make mobility accessible, sustainable, personalised, and convenient across shared and personal vehicles.

Ola raised $500 million from Warburg Pincus and Temasek in July, giving early backers Tiger and Matrix a part exit from the company.

Ola Electric, which was spun out of the ride-hailing major, also landed $200-million financing led by Falcon Edge, SoftBank and others, at a valuation of $3 billion on September 30.