Ola Electric Becomes A Unicorn After Softbank Invests $250 Million – Big Push For Electric Mobility!

Ola Electric, which is a subsidiary of ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd., owners of Ola Cabs, is now a billion-dollar startup.

This is a big push for Ola Electric’s ambitious electric mobility plans for India. 

Ola Electric Becomes A Billion Dollar Startup

Ola has just received its Series B funding of $250 million from SoftBank, which now makes them a billion-dollar startup. 

This would make it 30th Indian startup to enter the unicorn club. The company has raised $56 Mn (INR 400 Cr) from investors such as Ratan Tata, Tiger Global, and Matrix Partners during Series A funding round.

Ola had already launched India’s first multimodal electric vehicle project in Nagpur which was dropped down due to a number of issues. Ola Electric Mobility was set up as an independent entity in March 2019. 

It is currently running several pilots involving charging solutions, battery swapping stations, and deploying vehicles across two, three and four-wheeler segments. 

What is Mission: Electric

Mission: Electric is a platform to work with driver-partners, cities, vehicle manufacturers, battery companies, and others to make sustainable technologies cost-effective and viable in daily mobility. 

Ola will initially place 10,000 E-rickshaws and Electric auto-rickshaws in its service in the next 12 months. This comes in right when Government is pushing the agenda of turning towards electric in order to curb pollution.

The NITI Aayog council had already given a Short Notice To EV Industry For Electric Transition Roadmap. 

Ola Electric mobility, already is heading and making its way for bringing one million electric vehicles on the roads by 2021 which aligns right in with India’s goals of moving 40% vehicles to electric by 2026. 

The industry players were advised that if they do not take steps to address pollution issues, the courts will step in. 

The report further said that without a policy roadmap, transition to EVs cannot happen. With 14 of 15 most-polluted cities being in India, the government is pushing for major action on this front. With Ola now stepping in, it surely will carve the way for other big players to push towards Electric.