After Chief Business Officer, Ola Electric’s co-founder Ankit Jain quits

The exodus of senior employees at Ola continues amidst the severe loss of business due to Covid-19 at the ride-hailing firm. After many key departures, Ankit Jain, one of the co-founders at Ola Electric, has resigned after spending 18 months at the SoftBank-backed venture.

Jain’s resignation will severely impact Ola's efforts towards launching electric two-wheelers and creating the infrastructure for its electric-centered ecosystem. This is the second major exit from the company in the past few weeks. Its chief business officer (CBO) Sanjay Bhan also parted his ways with the company in July.

Jain was one of the close lieutenants of Ola’s co-founder and chief executive Bhavish Aggarwal. He served Ola for about five years in the capacity of VP and the head of Ola Play and co-founder of Ola Electric. ET has reported the development first.

Sources close to the company said that Jain’s departure would leave Ola Electric in the lurch. He was elevated to the co-founder position at Ola Electric in April last year. 

Entrackr has reached out to Ola, but the firm declined to offer comment for the story. 

Ola as a group has been grappling with senior-level exits for several months now. Since late last year, over a dozen employees at functions such as senior vice president, vice president, director, and vertical heads have resigned from the Bengaluru-based firm.

It’s worth noting that Ola Financial Services’ chief executive officer Nitin Gupta also put in his papers. At present, he’s serving notice period at Ola Financials. Significantly, Ola’s other co-founder Ankit Bhati has not been on good terms with Aggarwal as he was sidelined in Ola Electric.

Bhati doesn’t hold any stake in Ola Electric while Aggarwal controls the entity founded in 2017. Ola Electric turned into a unicorn in July 2019 when SoftBank and Tiger Global led a $250 million round.

Arun Srinivas, Sanjiv Saddy, Naroo Krishnan, Sanjay Kharb, and Naroo Krishnan also called quits on the company in 2020. The departure of key executives from Ola, Ola Electric, and Ola Financials services is not a good sign for Ola, especially at a time when the company has been struggling to regain 20% of its peak volume due to the pandemic.