Ola Electric, the heavily-funded electric vehicles arm of Softbank-backed ride-hailing giant Ola, has added yet another $200 million to its already swollen fundraising accounts. This, even when the company has continued to delay on the deliveries of its first batch of glitchy electric scooter, the S1, as well as delayed full-fledged production at its ‘FutureFactory’.
The current round, which values the electric upstart at $5 Billion, saw participation from Tekne Private Ventures, Alpine Opportunity Fund, Edelweiss and others. The round comes just months after a similar $200Mn capital raise announced in October last year.
Ola’s electric arm has been on a rather aggressive fundraising spree, bulking up capital as much as it can, as it looks to compete in a highly competitive, cut-throat global EV market. However, despite the fundraises, Ola Electric is mostly in news for either its fundraises, or its delayed/postponed pre-committed plans. The company has hardly made much progress on deliveries of its first batch of scooters.
The company had announced registrations for its first product — the S1 electric scooter, back in September last year. While the claimed registration numbers were astounding — over ₹600 crore worth of scooters booked — deliveries haven’t been that great. First 100 customers were given deliveries in mid December (which were scheduled to happen between Oct-Nov), and even those who got the scooters, reported several basic as well as complex issues.
The supposed futurefactory too, has seen several delays, and continues to promise a lot but deliver little.
