Ola Electric rakes in Rs 398 Cr led by Temasek

Ola Electric has raised more than Rs 398 crore in a financing round led by Temasek which also saw participation from Edelweiss, IIFL, Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s VSS Investco and others. 

Interestingly, a number of notable figures from the Hindi film industry, including the likes of acclaimed director Zoya Akhtar, her brother Farhan Akhtar and producer Ritesh Sidhwani have also invested in the company, according to regulatory filings. 

Ola Electric has allotted 371 Series C preference shares at an issue price of Rs 1,07,34,870 per share to raise Rs 398.3 crore in the round. 

According to Fintrackr’s calculations, the financing round values the company at $2.72 billion. It is worth noting that in October, the company had announced a valuation of $3 billion following a $200 million round. 

As far as specifics of the latest round go, Temasek pumped in Rs 185.71 crore into the company while Edelweiss invested Rs 111.64 crore. Meanwhile, Rs 74.07 crore came in from IIFL’s kitty. Farhan Akhtar invested Rs 2.15 crore and Zoya Akhtar cut a cheque of Rs 1.07 crore. Cars24’s early backer Rahul Raj Mehta and VSS Investco invested Rs 7.51 crore each. 

Promoters’ equity was diluted to 37.51% in the round.

Ola Electric had also raised $100 million in long term debt from Bank of Baroda in August, in what was one of the largest long-term debt financing agreements in the Indian EV industry. The company had also incorporated a new entity to receive funds. Entrackr was the first to report about its new entity – Ola Electric Technologies Private Limited.

However, even though the company is raking in large amounts of capital, the two electric scooters it has been teasing have seen several delays so far as the company is yet to make a single delivery to customers despite starting bookings in September. The company has claimed that the global chip shortage is to blame for the delay, and its CEO Bhavish Agarwal has said deliveries will start from December 15. 

Ola’s top management has also seen restructuring in the recent past as the company’s CFO Swayam Saurabh and COO Gaurav Porwal quit. Pritesh Mahajan has joined Ola Electric as its head of two-wheeler product planning program management.