Ratan Tata invests in Ola's electric mobility business

BENGALURU: Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, and an early backer of Ola, has invested an undisclosed amount in the ridehailing platform’s electric mobility business as part of its Series-A round, the company said in a statement on Monday.

Ola Electric had earlier raised about Rs 400 crore from Tiger Global and Matrix India.

“The electric vehicle ecosystem is evolving dramatically every day, and I believe Ola Electric will play a key role in its growth and development,” Tata said in a statement. The investment in the unit comes after Ola announced its plan last year to bring 1 million electric vehicles to Indian roads by 2022.


Headed by Anand Shah, a former BMW executive, and Ankit Jain, who led Ola’s connected vehicle platform, Ola Electric is running several pilots to deploy vehicles and install charging solutions, including battery-swapping stations.

“Ratan Tata has been an inspiration and a mentor to me personally in shaping Ola’s journey over the years,” said Bhavish Aggarwal, cofounder, Ola.

Ola has been actively pushing with the government initiatives pertaining to alternate technologies for EV as it plans to double down its focus on manufacturing and launching two- and three-wheeler electric vehicles for commercial use. Globally, governments across China, US, Denmark are incentivise ownership of electric vehicles.

Last month, ET reported that the company recommended to the government that it consider battery swapping and quick charge as appropriate technologies to promote electric vehicles mobility in India, a month after the central government came out with its .`10,000-crore FAME-2 scheme where it said it will offer subsidies based on the size of batteries.