NEW DELHI: Ola Electric, which is all set to launch its first electric scooter, said on Monday that it has raised $100 million in long-term debt from Bank of Baroda to close the first phase of development of its factory, where it plans to make electric two-wheelers.
This fundraising comes days after Ola, which is mainly into app-based taxi service, had announced raising $500 million from new investors — Singapore based Temsek holdings and an affiliate of global private equity firm Warburg Pincus — ahead of its public listing.
Ola Electric, which is valued at over $1 billion and backed by investors such as Matrix Partners, Tiger Global Management and SoftBank, had announced in last December that it will be investing Rs 2,400 crore for setting up Phase 1 of its Tamil Nadu factory, also called the Futurefactory.
“Today’s agreement for long term debt financing between Ola and Bank of Baroda signals the confidence of the institutional lenders in our plans to build the world’s largest two-wheeler factory in record time” said Bhavish Aggarwal, Chairman & Group CEO, Ola.
At full capacity, Ola’s factory can make 10 million vehicles annually.The soon-to-be-launched Ola Scooter will be manufactured at the Ola Futurefactory, which will also serve as the global EV hub for Ola for its range of scooters and other two-wheelers, the company said.
The company executive had earlier said that the e-scooter was likely to be launched in July this year and the company would explore the option of exporting the vehicle to markets such as France, Italy and Germany. The e-scooter is likely to compete with Hero MotoCorp-backed Ather Energy, Bajaj Auto and others.