Company of the year - Ola
Ola is rapidly expanding into other businesses and has made a potentially game-changing pivot to make electric vehicles. Take a look at how 2021 has turned out to be a year of reckoning for Ola
 "Bhavish Agarwal")
Photo: OLA Electric
36-year-old Bhavish Aggarwal is feeling like Tesla CEO Elon Musk nowadays. After all, he is running two unicorn startups -- Ola and its spin-off Ola Electric.
Drawing parallels to the world’s richest person, Aggarwal confessed to sleeping in Ola Electric’s factory in Tamil Nadu as it ramps up production of its newly-launched electric scooter.
He has had a rollercoaster of a year, to put it mildly. Most of the action took place at the Ola Electric factory 120 kilometres away from its headquarters in Bengaluru.
Ola began the year on a subdued note.
Its core ride-sharing business was in the doldrums, slowly recovering back to the pre-pandemic levels. The upturn would be thrown of the course again in the next few months in the second wave of pandemic.
Its FY21 revenue nosedived 63% to Rs 983 crore.
And around this time, Ola Electric, the EV unit spun off from Ola in 2019, commenced the construction of its two-wheeler factory.
The factory was meant to roll out 2 million scooters annually in the first phase and 10 million by mid-2022. The EV foray coincided with the government’s extension of the FAME-2 subsidy scheme for another two years.
But its plans have been hobbled by supply chain issues. The company was able to get the plant up and running in just over six months.
It promised first scooter deliveries in October, but pushed it to mid-December. The delay was blamed on the global semiconductor shortage by the company. The first batch of 100 units was handed over to customers on December 16, with pomp and show.
Expanding its footprint, Ola ventured into the used cars business in September. While in November, it launched a 10-minute grocery delivery service joining the rush of quick commerce startups.
Ola has plans to foray into personal finance, vehicle loans and micro-insurance. It also runs a food delivery business by leveraging its multi-brand cloud kitchens.
But a recent spate of exits at the leadership level perhaps gives us the sense that Ola is biting off more than it can chew.
In August, the gross merchandise value of Ola’s cab business crossed pre-Covid levels. The mobility business is showing maturity. It may not require heavy intervention but ensuring quality in customer service is still the key. On this front, customer complaints have not fallen on deaf ears and the company is finally taking steps to fix the most important issue of cab drivers cancelling rides.
India has no dearth of visionary entrepreneurs who can attract hundreds of millions of dollars in funding in an instant. Aggarwal is among those that are leading the pack, attracting funds from the likes of SoftBank, Tiger Global and Falcon Edge Capital.
As the year was coming to a close, Aggarwal has been able to take Ola’s valuation to $7.3 billion and that of Ola Electric’s to $5 billion, a no easy feat.
After a year that has taught hard lessons to Bhavish Aggarwal, an eventful 2022 awaits him. Ola is planning an IPO in the first half of next year and is preparing to launch a super app with all its offerings. As for Ola Electric, Aggarwal says they are still at the start of their journey.
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First Published: Dec 29 2021 | 8:30 AM IST
