Ola Electric gets SEBI nod for $660 Mn IPO

Six months after filing a draft red herring prospectus (DRHP), Ola Electric has finally received a go ahead signal for its initial public offering (IPO) from the Security Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

In December 2023, Ola Electric filed  the DRHP to raise Rs 5,500 crore ($660 million) through potential public listing.

According to the firm’s DRHP, Bhavish Aggarwal is the largest stakeholder in Ola Electric with 36.94% shares followed by SoftBank at 21.98%. Tiger Global, Indus Trust, and Alpha Wave own 6.03%, 3.85% and 3.49% shares, respectively.

Since filing the DRHP, Ola Electric has raised $62 million in debt across two tranches. It includes $50 million debt from EvolutionX in April. The latest tranche came earlier this month. Entrackr exclusively reported the development. As of now, Ola Electric has raised more than $1 billion in equity and debt rounds, and its last valuation stood at $5.5 billion.

Ola Electric grew at an exponential rate in FY23 as its revenue from operations spiked seven-fold to Rs 2,631 crore in FY23. Despite such scale, its losses grew 87.76% to Rs 1,472 crore in the fiscal year ending March 2023. The firm is yet to file its annual report for FY24.

Ola Electric’s direct competitor Ather Energy is also gearing up for an IPO. The Tarun Mehta-led company recently provided exit to its early investor Sachin Bansal, who sold his 7.5% stake to Hero MotoCorp and Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath.

The ongoing calendar year (2024) appears to have better prospects for startups in the public market. In 2021, more than 10 startups listed on stock exchanges. This number plummeted in 2022 (two IPOs) and 2023 (five IPOs). In 2024, however, startup IPOs have gathered momentum as a clutch of internet companies such as TBO tech, Digit Insurance, Awfis and Ixigo got listed while several others including FirstCry, Mobikwik, Unicommerce, and Swiggy have been waiting for the approval from the market regulator.

At the same time, logistics startup Blackbuck and online meat marketplace Zappfresh also converted into public entities. Entrackr exclusively reported both developments recently.