Ola Electric has announced that Tata Sons Chairman Emeritus, Ratan Tata has backed Ola’s Series A round of funding for the company’s upcoming EV deployment. Tata is also an early investor in ANI Technologies which is Ola’s parent company.
Ola Electric says Ratan Tata’s investment will bring deep experience and mentorship to the company’s ambitions to make electric mobility viable at scale. Ola Electric is currently running several pilots involving charging solutions, battery swapping stations, and deploying vehicles across two, three and four-wheeler segments.
Speaking about his investment in Ola Electric, Ratan Tata said “The electric vehicle ecosystem is evolving dramatically every day, and I believe Ola Electric will play a key role in its growth and development. I have always admired the vision of Bhavish Aggarwal and I’m confident that this will be part of yet another important strategic move into this new business area”.
Ola CEO and Co-founder, Bhavish Aggarwal also commented by saying “Mr. Tata has been an inspiration and a mentor to me personally in shaping Ola’s journey over the years. I’m very excited to welcome him on board Ola Electric as an investor and a mentor in our mission of building sustainable mobility for everyone on our planet. He is a visionary who has inspired a generation of entrepreneurs and we are privileged to have his guidance and support once again, as we work towards our goal of a million electric vehicles in India by 2021”.
Ola’s electric division has raised a sum of Rs 400 crores from Ola’s early investors, Tiger Global and Matrix India and others, as part of its first round of investment. The company was established to enable Ola’s electric mobility pilot program in Nagpur. In 2018, Ola announced its ‘Mission: Electric’ to bring 1 million Electric Vehicles on Indian roads by 2021.