Exclusive: Bhavish Aggarwal’s new entity Krutrim SI Designs in talks to raise up to $100 Mn

Krutrim SI Designs, a new company founded by Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal, is in talks to raise funds, sources aware of the development told Entrackr.

Aggarwal’s new entity is also said to have received commitment from a few investors. “Krutrim SI Designs is raising at least $50 million and it may go up to $100 million,” said one of the sources, requesting anonymity. “Matrix  has committed to invest $15 million in the company’s maiden funding round while several Ola’s existing and new investors will also participate.”

Krutrim SI Designs was incorporated in April this year with Tenneti Venugopala Krishnamurthy as co-founder. Krishnamurthy is a long time board member of Ola’s parent company ANI Technologies.

Sources suggest that Krutrim SI Designs will help in developing and support the operations of Ola Electric. In a recent interview, Aggarwal disclosed that the new entity will focus on creating silicon chips, a cloud infrastructure to deliver solutions to customers, and AI models.

“Aggarwal has also been talking to several startups based in the US and India for acquisition in the AI space but he’s yet to finalise one,” said another source requesting anonymity.

Queries sent to Ola and Matrix did not elicit an immediate response. We’ll update the post in case they do.

While further details on the nature of business of Krutrim SI Designs is yet to be ascertained, Ola Electric has been in expansion mode. On August 15, the company launched new variants of its electric scooters and also announced to enter electric bike manufacturing by 2024. The company claims that it saw a significant jump in its revenue and revenue and PAT (Profit After Tax) in FY23. However, the firm has not disclosed its audited financial numbers for the last fiscal year.

In FY22, it recorded Rs 373 crore in operating revenue with a four-fold jump in losses to Rs 784 crore. For Ola Electric, which is also eyeing an IPO soon, translating that much losses into PAT will be a remarkable achievement indeed.