Ola Cabs | Business Upturn

Ahead of IPO, Ola Cabs CFO Hemant Bakshi quits firm days after CEO’s exit

Adnan Nasir — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 12:03:52 +0000

Hemant Bakshi, CFO of Ola Cabs, has stepped down from his position barely four months after joining even as the firm is to undertake a restructuring exercise that will affect at least 10 per cent of the staff, as per the reports by Moneycontrol.

Bakshi, whose resignation from the ride hailing firm comes into effect immediately, had joined the company in January.

“With this restructuring, certain roles within the organization will be rendered redundant and could impact as much as 10 per cent of the workforce,” revealed a source to Moneycontrol.

Bakshi had joined the force to handle day-to-day operations.

The news of Bakshi’s resignment comes just a few weeks after Ola Cabs initiated preliminary discussions with investment banks for an IPO.

Ola Cabs has also made significant new appointments in the last one month including getting Kartik Gupta as the CFO and Sidharth Shakdher as the CBO.

The firm’s sister company, Ola Electric, has filed its draft red herring prospectus with the market regulator in December with aim of raising Rs 7,250 crores via IPO, which will mark the first attempt at public listing by an Indian electric vehicle firm.

According to a report from news agency Reuters, the cab service provider Ola Cabs is said to launch its Initial Public Offering (IPO) as soon as June-July. The report said that the Softbank-backed ride-hailing firm plans to raise $500 million at a valuation of nearly $5 billion.

Ola Cabs to file IPO papers with SEBI within three months: Report

Markets Desk — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 13:34:59 +0000

Indian cab service provider Ola Cabs is said to launch its Initial Public Offering (IPO) as soon as June-July, news agency Reuters reported today, quoting sources. The report said that the Softbank-backed ride-hailing firm plans to raise $500 million at a valuation of nearly $5 billion.

Ola Cabs has appointed foreign banks including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citi and domestic banks including Kotak and Axis for its upcoming IPO that the company plans to launch in the next three months, Reuters reported quoting sources.

Ola, Citi and Bank of America declined to comment on the story published by Reuters.

Ola Cabs starts laying-off employees; issues pink slips to 200 people

News Desk — Fri, 13 Jan 2023 11:01:18 +0000

A Cabs, a Bangalore-based cab aggregator, has begun to lay off employees. As part of its “restructuring process,” the firm has sent pink slips to 200 individuals across tech, engineering, and product departments, according to news portal Inc42.

It was also revealed that those fired were from the Ola Cabs, Ola Electric, and Ola Financial Services departments. Employees on the engineering team have been the most affected. In September, the firm announced the layoff of 200 employees.

“We constantly undergo reorganization exercises to increase efficiency, and certain functions have become obsolete. We will continue to make additional engineering and design recruits, including senior expertise in critical priority areas “According to the article, an Ola representative.

The corporation revealed intentions to lay off up to 1,000 staff in 2022. It has requested that the staff retire freely.

Ola’s restructuring was then projected to last a few more weeks. It was taking conducted in an effort to transfer attention to the company’s electric transportation division.

Bhavish Aggarwal, the business’s creator, told Business Standard in December 2022 that the company will begin manufacturing lithium-ion cells and create additional goods, such as scooters and tiny, lightweight commercial vehicles.

“We’ve been working on some of these things behind the scenes, and you’ll see us introducing many of these goods over the next 12 months,” he said.

Earlier this week, the business also shut down Avail Finance, a neo-banking startup it purchased in March 2022.

It also intends to integrate Avail Finance with its subsidiary Ola Money and has discontinued lending through the neo-banking platform.

Ola’s COO Gaurav Porwal and CFO Swayam Saurabh set to leave the company ahead of IPO launch: Report

Cheryll Jain — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 12:55:59 +0000

SoftBank-owned ridesharing company Ola cabs will see two of its apex executives departing the firm according to an internal memo, Reuters reported.

As per the memo, Ola Cab’s Chief Operating Officer Gaurav Porwal and Chief Financial Officer Swayam Saurabh will be giving up their positions and leaving the company ahead of its planned Rs.7,500 crore initial public offering (IPO) in the next few months.

The memo addressed to company employees by Ola’s Chief Executive Officer Bhavish Aggarwal also disclosed several changes in the organisation’s management across its mobility, vehicle commerce, and delivery and financial service segments.

“Vinay, who is building our Deliveries business will take on the additional responsibilities for the driver and supply ecosystem of our mobility platform due to the strong synergies between these businesses. Anshul, who leads marketing will take on the additional responsibility to drive revenue as well,” the CEO wrote noted in the memo.

He also stated that Swayam Saurabh will be departing from the company to seek other opportunities in mid-December. While Gaurav Porwal will be moving on from his position to “pursue other interests.”

This announcement marks just a few of many incidents on which several high position executives in Ola Cabs have left the company over the last year. Ola’s co-founder Pranay Jivrajka, Ola Electric’s co-founders Ankit Jain and Anand Shah are among the names who have moved on from the company in the recent past.

Meanwhile, Nitin Gupta, who operated as the CEO of Ola Financial Services, resigned last year and Ola’s Chief Business Officer Sanjay Bhan also left the organisation in less than a year.

Ola Cabs’ geo-analytics start-up GeoSpoc aims to improve geospatial services

Ayisha Farah — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 13:36:41 +0000

Ola Cabs’ parent ANI Technologies has obtained a geo-analytics technology platform, GeoSpoc, as it seeks to improve geospatial settings and abilities for its platforms. Ola did not reveal the fiscal aspects of the dealing.

The acquirement will support platforms like Ola and Ola Electric to produce improvements in transforming satellite representation into real-time maps and 3D, high-definition (HD), and vector maps, stated Ola founder and chief executive, Bhavish Aggarwal, in a blog post on Tuesday.

This will support Ola’s platform better understand road quality and enhancements such as dodging inadequately lit streets at night for protection, even if it is the faster way.
With the takeover, GeoSpoc’s investors will be dispersing the startup, and its team will be linking with Ola.

“Multi-modal transportation options will need geo-spatial intelligence to understand the unique benefits of each option and provide suggestions accordingly. Maps will need to consider a three-dimensional view of the world as aerial mobility models such as drones become more mainstream. (Further) autonomous driving will need HD and 3D maps which will offer superior visualization, dynamic real-time updates based on road, traffic and weather conditions,” said Aggarwal, affirming the goals for the acquisition in the blogpost.

In 2018, Ola also obtained Ridlr, held by Birds Eye Systems Pvt. Ltd, to enhance its navigation technology. Ola has made almost eight additions in the past to develop its ecosystem of products varying from transport, food tech to fintech, according to data from market analysis platform Traxcn.

Past acquisitions include car rental aggregator, TaxiForSure, its food ordering and delivery platform, Foodpanda and its mobile wallet solution Zip Cash. Recently, Mint reported that Ola Cabs has begun hiring investment banks and lawyers to work on its plans for an IPO that could see the ride-hailing company raise between $1.5 billion and $2 billion.

It had shortlisted investment banks including Kotak Mahindra Capital, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, Mint reported. The company is due to submit its draft IPO documents this month as it gears up for its public debut early next year. Last month, investors Temasek Holdings and Warburg Pincus invested $500 million in ANI Technologies. Aggarwal also took part in the round. According to Tracxn, he currently owns a 7.9% stake in the 11-year-old company.

IPO bound Ola raises $500 million from Temasek and Warburg

Bhomik Mathur — Fri, 09 Jul 2021 08:20:43 +0000

IPO bound ridesharing company Ola Cabs has raised about $500 million in the latest round of fundraising, with the participation of Temasek Holdings and the New York-based American private equity firm Warburg Pincus. Temasek Holdings is an investment fund owned by the Singapore government and has remained an investor in Ola Cabs since 2018.

The fundraising comes at a time when Ola’s business has been struggling due to the COVID-19 pandemic which has had an adverse effect on the mobility sector. The company’s valuation after the transaction was not revealed.

Ola’s founder Bhavish Aggarwal recently released a statement, saying, “Over the last 12 months we’ve made our ride-hailing business more robust, resilient and efficient”. He talked of utilizing the opportunity the ride-sharing company had in the urban mobility sector with people preferring private rides over public transportation due to health concerns. The company is also planning to go public, following a trend of various Indian tech. startups like Paytm and Zomato who are in the process of getting listed.

Meanwhile, the MD of Warburg Pincus, Vishal Mahadevia said that Warburg was excited to invest in Ola which he called one of the biggest consumer internet platforms in the country. “We look forward to collaborating with Bhavish and the team in the next phase of Ola’s growth,” he said on the fundraising.

Ola Cabs is also making a foray into the Electric Vehicles(EVs) sector and is planning to soon start the production of electric scooters. The company has created a separate entity called Ola Electric for its EV business. It is currently constructing a 500-acre two-wheeler production plant in Tamil Nadu.

Arun Srinivas & Sanjiv Saddy, 2 Top Level Officers quit Ola

Ruchit Purohit — Sat, 11 Jul 2020 05:08:28 +0000

Arun Srinivas & Sanjiv Saddy are 2 top level officers that have quit Ola. Couple of high level officers ended their journey with Ola this week as they look forward to other opportunities.

Arun Srinivas – was the Chief Sales & Marketing officer and Sanjiv Saddy was Senior Vice President at Ola before they resigned from the company.

In a E-MAIL statement the company said. “Arun Srinivas, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer and Sanjiv Saddy, Senior Vice President – Corporate Affairs. Are moving on to pursue other opportunities outside of Ola. The organisation wishes them well in their future endeavors.”

Arun was earlier working with Unilever for over 15 years and also with WestBridge capital partners. He joined Ola in 2019 a year before he resigned.

Sanjiv Saddy was previously working with Flipkart, TCS and Emaar MGF Land Ltd.