What next for Bhavish Aggarwal? The Ola Electric founder bets on energy independence to revive growth. Can he turn it around?

At the heart of Indiranagar in Bengaluru, close to its famous breweries and bakeries, a showroom meant to usher in a new era for electric mobility in India opened back in November 2022.

Three years later, Ola Electric’s showroom on CMH Road became ground zero for a company desperate to revive itself.

Towards the fag end of 2025, its controversial founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal moved into this building. On the first floor, he opened an office, to be closer to the problem to solve it. Parked outside were dozens of scooters requiring urgent repair.

Just 20 months ago, Ola was dominating electric two-wheelers, with nearly one in two sold in India. In February, it was closer to one in 20. A negative net cash position and a volatile stock price and subscale new launches have since triggered questions.

Ola Electric’s slide is more than a story of missed targets or rising competition. It is a reckoning with a founder who bet on scale over stability, spectacle over systems and speed over service.

As legacy players and deep-pocketed rivals gobbled its market share, Aggarwal is confronting the consequences of breakneck expansion.

Thanks to his move to focus on batteries and the massive price cuts to exploit the renewed interest in EVs, Ola Electric’s stock, which had been languishing at less than a third of its issue price for weeks, recently witnessed a surge. The stock hit the upper circuit on Thursday. In the meantime, one of its motorcycle variants became eligible for production linked incentives, bringing its sticker price down by 30%.

Clearly, he is throwing the kitchen sink at his long list of problems, but the big picture question still remains. Will the turnaround stick beyond the short term for the company whose ambition was to redefine the way India moved?

SEARCH FOR A WAYOUT

The fuel crisis due to the war in West Asia has brought him a straw to clutch on to. With newfound enthusiasm, he is championing energy independence, offering fresh discounts to tap into the sentiment away from fossil fuels.

That did help. From being relegated to the sixth position with 3,973 units, things improved in March to 10,119 units. As of April 10, with 3,551 units, it is at number 5, trailing Hero MotoCorp (3,816). This is despite the company announcing significant price cuts. The top three—TVS, Bajaj and Ather— are selling 2.5-3x Ola’s volume.

The market cap of around ₹18,000 crore ($1.93 billion) is just about a third of Ola Electric’s peak valuation. A far cry for a company that fancied $60 billion valuation by 2025.

In essence, the recent good news doesn’t hide Ola Electric’s diminished position in the EV market or its liquidity stress.

Halfway in the previous fiscal, the company had cash reserves of ₹3,700 crore, without factoring liabilities. Last quarter’s loss of ₹487 crore eroded that position. According to brokerage Emkay’s estimates, what was net cash of ₹160 crore in H1, 2025, has turned into a net debt of ₹670 crore by December.

At that rate, Aggarwal’s cash may last just about a year, resulting in job cuts, downsizing of office space and reduction of store footprint. Extending the runway has become everything. Since October last year, the company has been trying to raise ₹1,500 crore via equity and debt. After multiple fits and starts Aggarwal is again reviving his attempt for a qualified institutional placement (QIP).

From the all-time low of ₹21.21 in early March, the stock surged to ₹40.88 on Friday on the back of developments on the battery and government incentive fronts. Sales crawling back from the January-February lows too helped.

However, despite the recent uptick, stock is trading just around half of the issue price. That means any fundraise would still be heavily dilutive for Aggarwal. Any dilution of the promoter holding of 35% will signal his loosening grip. Regardless, the current cash crunch leaves few options on the table.

Now talks are in progress to raise up to ₹2,000 crore by selling a stake in its battery arm, Ola Cell Technologies (OCT). His way out of the current liquidity challenge hinges on these two fundraise moves. For this, he will need to win over investors—again. How?

It will likely take long to fix the many service issues, longer for it to rehabilitate Ola’s reputation, and even longer to have an impact on sales. A meaningful level of sales would be at least three times the current volume. But he cannot afford to wait.

His best bet, therefore, could be to showcase his battery biz to investors.

CELL DIVISION
In February, Ola Electric said it started selling energy storage units powered by its own 4680 Bharat cells. In April, the company announced the use of its new inhouse manufactured LFP-based cells in its vehicles from next quarter, claiming this will set the stage for cost reduction, gigafactory scale-up and expansion of battery energy storage systems business.

On paper, it makes sense. India’s EV battery manufacturing capacity is next to zero. Everyone depends on China. The single-supplier geopolitical risk could give Ola’s Gigafactory project an edge.

But the ecosystem is cautious. One worry is if it has the required scale to take the battle to the Chinese.

As Deepesh Rathore, founder of industry research firm Insight EV says, “Gigafactory operating at a small capacity isn’t commercially viable, considering the huge capacities that the Chinese have set up. Cell production is an expensive affair. With 6 GWh, you likely don’t have economies of scale. You cannot compete with the Chinese on pricing.” The company is pursuing a case against Rathore, a former director–strategy at Ola Electric.

That isn’t the only problem. There is also the question of slowing demand for the battery chemistry that Ola initially opted for, choosing the NMC (nickel, manganese, cobalt) lithium-ion chemistry over Lithium iron phosphate (LFP). As they announced this week, Ola has since revealed its LFP plans, but scaling up will be challenging.

It is said that Ola opted for NMC chemistry keeping an electric sedan project in mind, one among the many programmes that were shelved by Aggarwal.

Ola, in response to queries, told ET: “India’s first Gigafactory and its ecosystem, including 4680 Bharat Cell, represent strategic, long-term assets of significant value. We are now entering the value realisation phase of these investments, with clear pathways to sustainable monetisation.”

If Aggarwal can make a coherent business out of batteries, there is an opportunity to be tapped into.

As an EV industry executive put it, in battery manufacturing locally, “He is the only guy, if his claims are true.”

Satish Meena, founder, Datum Intelligence, a market research firm, adds, “Recovering lost ground is not easy. The question here is whether there is a genuine willingness to improve quality and business or is this a new diversion and a sign of losing interest in the core vehicle manufacturing business.”

LINGERING PAST
While recent weeks have brought much needed relief, consistent effort is required to wipe away Aggarwal’s reputation among critics as a founder in a hurry, prone to taking shortcuts. While Ola tried to overcome the impact of fire incidents with low prices undercutting competition, aggressive marketing, and all-out expansion, the firm could never quite recover its reputation.

Aggarwal had initially got into public mudslinging matches with those who posed questions about quality, once getting into a memorable spat with comedian Kunal Kamra on social media.

It took him four years after the commercial rollout and six quarters as a public company to acknowledge “service challenge has impacted our brand trust”.

By then, videos of fisticuffs at its outlets and photographs of scooters piled up at service yards had already done the damage, prompting central government departments to initiate enquiries.

Meanwhile, in November, Goa government blocked registration of Ola scooters, citing persistent complaints.

Puneet Gupta, director of automotive intelligence firm S&P Global Mobility, says, “Ola seems to have underestimated customer expectations and was relatively slow in responding to customer complaints. In the automotive industry, the product ultimately determines success.”

There were also issues around statements the company made to the exchanges. Back in February 2025, a sudden discontinuation of third-party vendors—an attempt to cut costs—led to a sharp fall in Ola’s scooter registrations. However, ahead of the media reporting monthly sales numbers, Ola Electric declared it sold 25,000 units and that it dominated with a 28% share .

This was in sharp contrast to the actual registration of 8,649 Ola scooters in the government’s Vahan database. Although Ola Electric tried to justify this discrepancy by claiming what they announced were confirmed orders, analysts and industry observers raised questions since it is not usual auto industry practice to cite unregistered andunlaunched vehicles.

All of these dented Aggarwal’s standing with investors.

THE PEOPLE PROBLEM
Even if Aggarwal somehow manages to raise fresh funds, another fundamental weakness continues to haunt the firm.

With the current cash crunch, the people problem has affected all levels of the organisation. Key CXO positions to oversee tech, product, sales, HR and marketing functions have been vacant for up to two years. A large part of managerial level jobs have been carried out by consultants from the likes of BCG, but such spending is thought to be ebbing.

According to persons aware of the matter, the company combined sales and service head roles at regional manager levels and cut several jobs.
Multiple executive search agencies, which declined to come on record, say they are not keen to work with Ola because of the unstable work environment.

Aggarwal operated with a close coterie of young executives who called him “bhai”. During the intense period of plant construction and scooter launch, this included Suvonil Chatterjee, Slokarth Das and Anshul Khandelwal. They exited post IPO.

Aggarwal then assembled a new inner circle with his brother Ankush Aggarwal, Vishal Chaturvedi and Tushar Mehndiratta. Chaturvedi exited on December 31. Insiders say Ankush hasn’t turned up in office for more than two months.

Longtime confidant CFO Harish Abhichandani too left.

Aggarwal reached out to former executives asking them to return, and one, a senior director at Ola Cabs who quit six years ago, did come back in October, only to leave in two months.

Replying to ET’s questionnaire, the company says, “Ola Electric and its subsidiaries have built an integrated, scalable manufacturing infrastructure, a proprietary technology stack and a deep product roadmap. This has entailed an upfront investment of ₹5,300 crore across battery innovation, R&D and manufacturing capabilities.”

UNFINISHED TASKS
Aggarwal isn’t unfamiliar with uncertainty. During the buildout phase Ola Consumer (earlier Ola Cabs) had faced near-death scenarios a few times but he navigated it to safety.

That experience may give him confidence, but a key concern is Aggarwal’s poor record in translating his fundraising success into meaningful businesses. The market leader for much of the past 15 years has now been relegated to third place in ride volume, behind Uber and Rapido.
In May 2025, they were marked down to a $1.25 billion valuation by US AMC Vanguard, which holds around 0.7% stake. It is just a third of the money that the company raised in total. They last raised capital in February 2022.

A Moody’s Ratings review in late 2025, which downgraded Ola Consumer’s loan facility, highlighted weakness in its performance, eroding liquidity and risk of covenant breach.

Some investors made a feeble attempt to sell the company. But Aggarwal rebuffed such moves.

Waning investor interest—both in private capital and public market—is real across his group companies.

Except for a $50 million investment by longtime partners Z47 (formerly Matrix Partners India) in Krutrim, no investor has put money in Aggarwal’s privately held companies in four years.

His AI venture not attracting investor attention is particularly telling. Krutrim, a foray into AI, chips and cloud services, has gone through serious churn. Despite being India’s only AI unicorn on paper, its absence was conspicuous at the recent AI Impact Summit in New Delhi.
Gupta says, “There is still a significant opportunity for Ola if it addresses the current pain points and allows experienced professional management to steer the company forward.”

For a founder of three unicorns which raised nearly $5 billion of private capital, the current crisis is quite unlike what Aggarwal has faced in the past.

The sharp decline in share price, dismal quarterly numbers, and a draining cash chest sparked takeover speculations. They certainly have interesting manufacturing assets. Its mega scooter manufacturing factory, cell production facility and other infrastructure that support a vertical integration strategy makes Ola Electric’s physical assets attractive.

A visit by the scion of a powerful business conglomerate gave rise to speculation within Ola circles about some potential acquisition interest in its cell business.

The likely success of the ongoing fundraise may put to rest such talks. For now.