Bhavish Aggarwal, the company’s founder and CEO, will take a step back from day-to-day operations to focus on technical activities, team building, products, and long-term strategic projects like two-wheelers, cars, and breakthroughs in rapid commerce and international expansion. GR Arun Kumar, who joined Ola less than a year ago and is currently the Group CFO and CFO of Ola Electric, will now be incharge of the group’s day-to-day operations.
The dramatic change of guard comes as Ola is in talks for a new round of investment. Ola Electric scooters have been criticised for quality difficulties. The company has experienced staff churn at all levels.
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“To drive scale, speed, and quality, we need to execute with serious attention to detail, and every team has to work together in sync with everyone else. And in parallel, we need to keep innovating into new and exciting opportunities to have a larger impact,” Aggarwal said in the note.
“I’ll be spending more time with all engineering functions, team building, and on the product. I’ll also be increasing my focus on our longer-term strategic projects, including new 2W products, our car project, innovations in quick commerce, electrifying ride-hailing, our cell R&D and factory, international expansion, and building out our Pune tech center and the Futurefoundry UK, and more,” he added.
He further stated, “To ensure that we have adequate focus on the execution of the current businesses, I am expanding Arun GR’s role to help me drive the day-to-day operations across the group.”
“Arun joined Ola a year ago, and through the last year, he’s been extremely impactful. As CFO, leading the entire manufacturing, supply chain, S&OP, construction for Ola Electric, working with everyone across mobility, auto retail, quick commerce, and running OFS as interim CEO, he has been very effective,” added.
In his new capacity; according to Aggarwal, Arun will collaborate with all of the company’s executives across teams to drive important metrics, lead business reviews, and major cross-team projects, thus making him the most influential executive after Bhavish.
The announcement comes as the SoftBank-backed firm, which had planned to list on the public markets this year, is now planning to raise a new round of funding at a lower valuation, signalling a sharp reversal in fortune for startups after a record-breaking 2021, which saw sky-high valuations in both the public and private markets. It also bought Avail Finance, a company founded by Aggarwal’s younger brother, Ankush Aggarwal, which has generated questions about governance and accountability.
Ola was previously valued at $7.3 billion when it raised $139 million in its Series J round, which was led by Edelweiss PE, IIFL, and Sunil Munjal’s Hero Enterprises, in what appeared to be the final round of fundraising before its IPO. It raised $500 million from Warburg Pincus and Temasek before the $139 million, giving early backers Tiger and Matrix a portion of the company. At a Reuters Next conference in December last year, Ola founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal stated that the company wants to go public in the first half of 2022.
Aggarwal also revealed plans for a super app, including mobility and loans and microinsurance.
Aggarwal is the founder of two unicorns: Ola, a ride-hailing company, and Ola Electric, an electric two-wheeler startup with big hopes to disrupt the market. It began delivering its electric scooters in December of last year, a month later than its original schedule of October.
While COVID-induced lockdowns harmed its ride-hailing business last year, it has been steadily improving in recent months as India has opened up significantly.
