Simply two years in the past, Bhavish Aggarwal was going through certainly one of his largest assessments. A video on social media confirmed an Ola Electrical Mobility Ltd. car bursting into flames within the Indian metropolis of Pune, elevating doubts about whether or not his guess on the world’s largest e-scooter manufacturing facility would finally repay.
The outspoken founder, who’s drawn parallels to Elon Musk, bounced again.Now, the corporate’s public itemizing is ready to cement his place as one of many world’s youngest billionaires.
Aggarwal, 38, will add $1.2 billion to his wealth if his SoftBank Group Corp-backed Ola Electrical lists Friday in Mumbai on the lowest finish of the worth band at 72 rupees ($0.86) a share, giving the entrepreneur a web value of $2.3 billion, in accordance with the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Ola Electrical didn’t instantly reply to requests for touch upon Aggarwal’s web value.
Regardless of being but to show a revenue because it was based in Bengaluru in 2017, Ola Electrical is among the many many electrical vehicle-linked corporations taking a look at India’s public market to boost cash, tapping into the craze for different fuels in one of many busiest nations for brand new share choices. The agency made a web lack of 14.7 billion rupees within the monetary yr ended March 2023, its supply doc exhibits.
“Three years in the past after we launched our product, I consider that’s when the EV story started,” Aggarwal mentioned at a press convention in Mumbai in late July.
Simply two years after its founding and with out having shipped a single scooter, Ola Electrical had turn out to be a unicorn — a startup with a $1 billion valuation — due to early funding from the likes of SoftBank and Tiger International Administration. At a time when India’s inexperienced infrastructure was in its nascency, Aggarwal aimed to construct the world’s main “city mobility EV firm,” he informed Bloomberg Information in 2021.
However the firm encountered some early stumbles. Shortly after it debuted its electrical two-wheelers in 2021, it noticed a significant setback when Ola scooters had been caught up in a spate of high-profile EV battery fires throughout the nation.
The corporate recalled greater than 1,400 scooters within the wake of the incidents.
Taking over Tesla
A serial entrepreneur, Aggarwal has began firms working in a spread of industries from on-line funds to synthetic intelligence.
Even earlier than the itemizing of his electric-vehicle firm, Aggarwal had joined an unique membership. Bloomberg’s wealth index of the world’s prime 500 billionaires lists solely seven underneath the age of 40 internationally, excluding Meta Platforms Inc. founders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz each of whom turned 40 in Could.
Aggarwal in some ways embodies Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s extra assured and assertive India. By no means one to draw back from providing an opinion, Aggarwal appeared to welcome Tesla Inc.’s determination final month to not put money into India, saying in a publish on X, “that is Tesla’s loss, not India’s.”
He appears to relish competing with world giants reminiscent of Musk’s EV enterprise on his dwelling turf. As he put it in an interview with Bloomberg final yr: “Tesla is for the West, Ola is for the remaining.”
After graduating from certainly one of India’s prime technology-focused faculties, the Indian Institute of Know-how Bombay, Aggarwal began out working at Microsoft Analysis India earlier than founding his first firm in 2010. Ola Cabs, or ANI Applied sciences Pvt, was launched as a ride-hailing app to rival Uber Applied sciences Inc. and shortly expanded past cab companies into on-line funds and food-delivery.
He based his newest enterprise, Krutrim, in 2023, which grew to become India’s first $1 billion AI startup in January this yr. Via Krutrim, he plans on constructing giant language fashions, information facilities, and finally servers and tremendous computer systems for the AI ecosystem.
All of his corporations are in tech-led sectors, creating information that can be utilized by his different companies, mentioned Nitin Pangarkar, affiliate professor of technique and coverage on the Nationwide College of Singapore. “However the consideration given to the companies may very well be a difficulty.”
He owns stake in Ola Cabs and Krutrim, and has additionally invested undisclosed quantities in tea chain Chaayos and information platform YourStory amongst others as an angel investor, in accordance with information from Tracxn Applied sciences Ltd.
He’s a vocal supporter of Modi’s goal to spice up native manufacturing, and infrequently takes to social media in addition to blogs to speak about how his corporations can contribute to India’s financial progress.
In Could, he ditched Microsoft Azure’s cloud companies for his agency’s and moved to Krutrim cloud after a LinkedIn chatbot used gender impartial pronouns with him. Criticizing Microsoft for “pronoun sickness” on his X account, he mentioned Indians want to maneuver away from western ideas of range, fairness and inclusion and set their very own tips.
“He’s like India’s Elon Musk,” mentioned Pangarkar. “Brash and abrasive and all that. However that hasn’t stopped Musk from succeeding.”
The outspoken founder, who’s drawn parallels to Elon Musk, bounced again.Now, the corporate’s public itemizing is ready to cement his place as one of many world’s youngest billionaires.
Aggarwal, 38, will add $1.2 billion to his wealth if his SoftBank Group Corp-backed Ola Electrical lists Friday in Mumbai on the lowest finish of the worth band at 72 rupees ($0.86) a share, giving the entrepreneur a web value of $2.3 billion, in accordance with the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Ola Electrical didn’t instantly reply to requests for touch upon Aggarwal’s web value.
Regardless of being but to show a revenue because it was based in Bengaluru in 2017, Ola Electrical is among the many many electrical vehicle-linked corporations taking a look at India’s public market to boost cash, tapping into the craze for different fuels in one of many busiest nations for brand new share choices. The agency made a web lack of 14.7 billion rupees within the monetary yr ended March 2023, its supply doc exhibits.
“Three years in the past after we launched our product, I consider that’s when the EV story started,” Aggarwal mentioned at a press convention in Mumbai in late July.
Simply two years after its founding and with out having shipped a single scooter, Ola Electrical had turn out to be a unicorn — a startup with a $1 billion valuation — due to early funding from the likes of SoftBank and Tiger International Administration. At a time when India’s inexperienced infrastructure was in its nascency, Aggarwal aimed to construct the world’s main “city mobility EV firm,” he informed Bloomberg Information in 2021.
However the firm encountered some early stumbles. Shortly after it debuted its electrical two-wheelers in 2021, it noticed a significant setback when Ola scooters had been caught up in a spate of high-profile EV battery fires throughout the nation.
The corporate recalled greater than 1,400 scooters within the wake of the incidents.
Taking over Tesla
A serial entrepreneur, Aggarwal has began firms working in a spread of industries from on-line funds to synthetic intelligence.
Even earlier than the itemizing of his electric-vehicle firm, Aggarwal had joined an unique membership. Bloomberg’s wealth index of the world’s prime 500 billionaires lists solely seven underneath the age of 40 internationally, excluding Meta Platforms Inc. founders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz each of whom turned 40 in Could.
Aggarwal in some ways embodies Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s extra assured and assertive India. By no means one to draw back from providing an opinion, Aggarwal appeared to welcome Tesla Inc.’s determination final month to not put money into India, saying in a publish on X, “that is Tesla’s loss, not India’s.”
He appears to relish competing with world giants reminiscent of Musk’s EV enterprise on his dwelling turf. As he put it in an interview with Bloomberg final yr: “Tesla is for the West, Ola is for the remaining.”
After graduating from certainly one of India’s prime technology-focused faculties, the Indian Institute of Know-how Bombay, Aggarwal began out working at Microsoft Analysis India earlier than founding his first firm in 2010. Ola Cabs, or ANI Applied sciences Pvt, was launched as a ride-hailing app to rival Uber Applied sciences Inc. and shortly expanded past cab companies into on-line funds and food-delivery.
He based his newest enterprise, Krutrim, in 2023, which grew to become India’s first $1 billion AI startup in January this yr. Via Krutrim, he plans on constructing giant language fashions, information facilities, and finally servers and tremendous computer systems for the AI ecosystem.
All of his corporations are in tech-led sectors, creating information that can be utilized by his different companies, mentioned Nitin Pangarkar, affiliate professor of technique and coverage on the Nationwide College of Singapore. “However the consideration given to the companies may very well be a difficulty.”
He owns stake in Ola Cabs and Krutrim, and has additionally invested undisclosed quantities in tea chain Chaayos and information platform YourStory amongst others as an angel investor, in accordance with information from Tracxn Applied sciences Ltd.
He’s a vocal supporter of Modi’s goal to spice up native manufacturing, and infrequently takes to social media in addition to blogs to speak about how his corporations can contribute to India’s financial progress.
In Could, he ditched Microsoft Azure’s cloud companies for his agency’s and moved to Krutrim cloud after a LinkedIn chatbot used gender impartial pronouns with him. Criticizing Microsoft for “pronoun sickness” on his X account, he mentioned Indians want to maneuver away from western ideas of range, fairness and inclusion and set their very own tips.
“He’s like India’s Elon Musk,” mentioned Pangarkar. “Brash and abrasive and all that. However that hasn’t stopped Musk from succeeding.”
