ET Awards: Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal wins Entrepreneur award for corporate excellence

Bhavish Aggarwal: Fighting a giant on the road brings the best out of him

Entrepreneur Contenders:
Ajit Isaac, Chairman, MD & CEO,Quess Corp
Anil Kumar Chalamalasetty And Mahesh Kolli, Founders, Greenko
Baba Ramdev, Founder, Patanjali Ayurved
Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-Founder & Ceo, Ola
Binish Chudgar, Vice-Chairman, Intas Pharmaceuticals
Deep Kalra, Chairman & Group CEO, MakeMyTrip
Radhakishan Damani, Founder, D-Mart

Nine years ago, Bhavish Aggarwal graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology with a degree in computer science. Today, he’s battling Uber, one of the world’s best-funded startups. But he’s got some strong supporters –– Japan’s richest man Masayoshi Son and Russia’s Yuri Milner. Recently, he has won the backing of the UC-RNT fund, a joint venture between Ratan Tata’s RNT Associates and the University of California, and is in the process of raising additional capital from Chinese internet giant Tencent.

His company, Ola, — now valued at around $4 billion — is one of India’s most valuable startups and market leader in the ondemand transportation space.

The category was keenly contested. The jury had shortlisted three candidates. In the first round Aggarwal got five votes as against four for his closest rival. In the second, the jury was unanimous.



“It feels very exciting that the efforts are recognised and is a boost of encouragement for the future. It is still very early in our journey. This recognition not just for me but for the entire Ola team,” said Aggarwal on winning the Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Aggarwal, who was on the jury, recused himself for the discussion and vote on this award. Last year, Ola restructured the business to step up focus and investment in its core taxi service after pulling the shutters down on experiments such as food and grocery delivery.

Since then, it has not just launched new categories to widen its scope of offerings, but also paid attention to improving customer experience. The move helped Ola maintain its lead over rival Uber, critical at this point to keep its valuation and numbers buoyant. Entry into segments such as autorickshaws and electric vehicles has already started to pay off, and has become a differentiator against rival Uber.

Hailing from Ludhiana in Punjab, Aggarwal worked with Microsoft Research for two years, where he filed two patents and published three papers in international journals. He knew that the hyper-local transport issue had enormous potential and wanted to make a difference.

His approach to creating a business is this –– no shortcuts. That, he says has helped Ola maintain market leadership in a competitive environment.