IPO-bound Ola Electric cuts valuation by 26%; Bhavish Aggarwal explains why

Ola Electric’s ₹6,146-crore IPO is the largest public issue that the market has seen this year. The offer values the company at $4 billion, which is 25% lower as compared to the valuation of $5.4 billion at which it raised funds in September last year.

Bhavish Aggarwal told The Economic Times, “We are four-five years old and have scaled significantly. I wanted to make sure we price it attractively for the entire investor community in India. It's a journey of significance for the country — we're doing EVs, cells, India manufacturing, cutting-edge manufacturing. Hence, we represent a lot of themes that the future of the Indian economy is built on. The response from investors has been very encouraging.”

He said that his journey as an entrepreneur isn’t about short-term value creation but about building the right things for the long term.

Aggarwal added that the company is on a very strong growth stretch with a huge potential addressable market in automotive.

Talking about the car project, Aggarwal said that more products are in the pipeline along with a cell that is the foundation for the whole EV ecosystem.

He said, “We've never commented on the car timeline publicly. The first step for us was to launch a scooter and now we have a portfolio of scooters. Then came motorbikes and bikes which we announced last year. This year on August 15, we will announce some more products. In parallel with that, we are building the cell which is the foundation of the whole EV ecosystem.”

When questioned if innovation will suffer as Ola Electric will now be a publicly listed company, he said that he doesn’t think public market listing hinders innovation and that the best companies globally have been established in public markets,

Ola Electric IPO: Proposed timeline

• Bidding dates: August 2 to August 6
• Allotment finalisation: August 7
• Refund initiation: August 8
• Demat transfer: August 8
• Listing: August 9

The proposed initial share sale consists of a fresh issuance of equity shares up to ₹5,500 crore and an offer-for-sale (OFS) component of 9.52 crore shares by promoters and investors, as per the draft red herring prospectus.