Startups should not restrict board positions only to investors: Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal

Bhavish Aggarwal, Founder and CEO Ola, Ola Electric (Illustration: Moneycontrol)

Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder and CEO of Ola Cabs and Ola Electric, said that startups should have a more diverse set of board members instead of restricting the constitution to just a few of their investors.

“A startup should always have a blend of both, investors as well as non-investors, who are senior professionals from around the world. At Ola, we have very senior board members, which helped me grow the company,” Aggarwal said while speaking at the TiE conference in Bengaluru.

It is to be noted that former Vodafone Group CEO Arun Sarin and Prabhakar Patil, who was earlier CEO of LG Chem Power both sit on Ola Electric’s board. BVR Subbu, former President of Hyundai Motor India and Jaime Ardila Gomez, former Executive VP and President of South America for General Motors are also part of the company’s board. They are in addition to Avnish Bajaj of Matrix Partners India and Sumer Juneja from SoftBank, both of which are investors in Ola.

“Sometimes young entrepreneurs make the mistake of having an investor-only board because investors ask for a board seat but then you lose out on building a broader perspective and company. If one has a more balanced board, they’re able to have broader perspectives, both on and off the board,” Aggarwal added.

Large Indian startups have been expanding their board by appointing industry veterans. Last year, Swiggy appointed Delhivery founder and CEO Sahil Barua, Mallika Srinivasan, Padma Shri awardee and Chairman and Managing Director of TAFE and Shailesh Haribhakti, Chairman of Shailesh Haribhakti & Associates to its board as it prepares for a public listing.

Even Byju’s, India’s most-valued startup, put in place a new board advisory council where Infosys co-founder TV Mohandas Pai and BharatPe Chairman Rajnish Kumar were roped in to provide advice and guidance to the edtech startup.

Aggarwal also said his ride-hailing business, Ola Cabs, which competes with Uber in India, will tap into the reach of Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) to grow its business further. Last year, Namma Yatri an app for auto rickshaws also joined the ONDC and is now one of the primary drivers of the network.

“Now is truly India’s moment,” Aggarwal said while talking about the potential of the country.

ANI Technologies-owned Ola Cabs on August 9 reported a consolidated revenue of Rs 1,970.42  crore during the financial year 2022 (FY22), up nearly 100 percent year-on-year (YoY), showed filings sourced from the Registrar of Companies (RoC). In FY21, Ola reported a consolidated revenue of Rs 983 crore.

The company reported a consolidated loss of Rs 1,522.3 crore in FY22 up by around 36.3 percent YoY mainly on account of a rise in its overall expenses. In FY21, Ola reported a loss of Rs 1,116 crore. The firm’s total expenses were at around Rs 3,362 crore up by around 67.5 percent YoY.