Bhavish Aggarwal might not have yet managed to take his first company public, but he’s looks to be proving second time lucky.
Ola Electric has secured SEBI’s approval for a Rs. 5,500 crore IPO, ET reports. This would tbe first IPO by an EV maker in India, and among the biggest startup IPOs ever in the country. The IPO will reportedly value Ola at $6 billion. The company will look to go public in mid July.
According to Ola Electric’s draft IPO papers, founder Bhavish Aggarwal will sell up to 47.4 million shares, or around 1.3% stake, via the IPO followed by SoftBank Vision Fund (23.8 million), Tiger Global (6.4 million), Alpha Wave Global (3.8 million), Matrix Partners India (3.7 million) and Temasek (1.3 million). At this price, Aggarwal will make $78 million (Rs. 600 crore) from the IPO alone. The IPO will have an OFS component of 95 million shares.
This has been rapid progress for Ola Electric, which was founded only in 2017. The company had acquired European EV maker Ertego in 2020, following which it quickly began manufacturing its own EV scooters after setting up the world’s largest 2W EV manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu. In 2021, Ola had embarked on a extensive marketing campaign for its electric scooters, and had finally unveiled its first scooter in August in a glitzy event. Deliveries for the scooter had initially been delayed, but had later caught pace. There had been no shortage of demand for Ola’s scooters, and Ola had quickly become India’s largest 2W EV seller, leaving behind companies like Bajaj and TVS. There had been some controversies for the company to contend with as well — there had been bad press about Ola’s scooters catching fire in a few instances, but that didn’t seem to dampen user enthusiasm, and Ola continues to be India’s largest Indian 2W EV seller to this day.
And Ola now appears set to go public in a historic IPO. This would be the first time a manufacturing startup in India will go public, and also the first time that an EV maker will hit the public markets. Ola will also have the benefits of immense name recognition — the brand is widely known through its ride hailing service and its electric scooters, and could find interest among retail investors. Ola Electric, though, still doesn’t make money, having posted a loss of Rs. 1,472 crore in FY23. It remains to be seen how Ola Electric’s IPO will fare, but with the stock markets currently in red-hot form, and massive tailwinds for the EV space, Ola could end up with an impressive debut at the stock markets.