Falcon Edge leads $200m round for India's Ola Electric

Warburg Pincus and Temasek Holdings acquired an undisclosed stake in the company in July for $500 million, providing exits for Tiger Global Management and Matrix Partners India. SoftBank Vision Fund invested $250 million for a 22% stake in 2019.

According to a statement, the capital raise follows more than $150 million of scooter sales in the company’s first “purchase window” during which Ola products outsold the rest of the two-wheeler industry for a period of two days.

Ola Electric was established in 2017 to manage a pilot program by ride-hailing platform Ola focused on introducing electric taxis, rickshaws, and bus services to the app. It spun out in 2019 and established a manufacturing partnership with Mahindra & Mahindra.

The most significant traction is the construction of what the company calls the most advanced factory of its kind in the world. The facility, known as Futurefactory, is the largest to be run entirely by women. At full capacity, it will employ more than 10,000 women.

There is a strong focus on mass-market scooters, although motorbikes and cars are also in production. The core product is the S1 scooter, which is said to have a range of 181 kilometers, a top speed of 115 kilometers per hour, and 30% more battery capacity than the next-best EV. It is priced as low as INR100,000 ($1,340).

About 80% of the vehicles sold in India are two-wheelers but only 12% of Indians own one. These vehicles are responsible for 40% of air pollution but are considered easily electrified due to their simpler engineering and ability to be plugged into standard power outlets.

Other players in this space include Ather Energy, which has raised more than $60 million from the likes of Hero MotoCorp and Tiger.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Cleantech
• Expansion
• India
• Falcon Edge Capital
• Softbank
• Electric Vehicles
• automobiles
• Transportation