With $250 Mn investment, Softbank churns another unicorn from India - Ola Electric

Ola Electric Mobility has picked a $250 million in Series B round from Softbank Vision Fund at a valuation of $1 billion. The electric subsidiary of Ola has become the 16th Indian consumer internet company to become Unicorn.

Further, Ola Electric Mobility and Ola are now two unicorns from a single holding entity - the second such pair in the Indian startup ecosystem. Paytm and Paytm Mall are two Unicorns from One97 Communication's family.

According to an ET report via PTI, the fresh allotment was made on July 2 following a special resolution passed by the board member on June 25. This is the third external round for the subsidiary of ANI Technologies within a span of two months.

Two months ago, it had picked up Rs 400 crore round led by early backers of Ola – Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, and Sarin Family India LLC.

Following the first external investment, Ratan Tata also invested in the firm.

The latest round will give a shot in the arm of Ola’s mega plan of deploying 1 million electric vehicles by 2022. The infusion of the fresh round would also help it in complying with the Indian government's long plan to convert 40% of ride-hailing cars into electric by April 2026.

Within four months of launching the electric business as a separate entity, the firm has seen a lot of positive activity. Besides roping in major investors, it improved the leadership roles and backing from the government over incentivising.

As far as team building is concerned, Ola Electric is headed by former BMW executive Anand Sha and Ankit Jain, who headed Ola’s connected vehicle platform. It also onboarded former CEO of Vodafone Group Plc, Arun Sarin as an independent member of the board of Ola Electric.

Apart from the aforementioned plans, Ola is also set to manufacture and run e-vehicles with easy recharging solutions. It has been working hard to boost the financial of the electric unit and aims to become profitable in the next fiscal.

Over the past couple of years, India is looking to take a cue from countries like China, USA, Denmark to push the clean mobility policy to bring down its oil imports and curb pollution. Apart from automakers, there is an onus on these cab aggregators to convert their current fleet into electric.