The promoter shares in Ola Electric, which went public in August, are currently in a lock-in period under Securities and Exchange Board of India regulations for newly listed companies.Ola Electric founder Bhavish Aggarwal has pledged a 1.1% stake in the electric two-wheeler maker from his personal holding to fund his artificial intelligence startup, Krutrim AI.
Aggarwal has signed a non-disposal undertaking with Axis Trustee Services and Krutrim Data Centre to secure certain debentures being issued by Krutrim, Ola Electric said in a public disclosure. A non-disposal undertaking is a legal agreement where a person or entity agrees not to sell or transfer certain assets for a specified period.
Aggarwal, who holds a 30.02% stake (more than 1.32 billion shares) in Ola Electric, has pledged 48 million shares. Based on Ola Electric's closing share price of Rs 93.260 on Monday, the pledged shares are valued at about Rs 450 crore.
The promoter shares in Ola Electric, which went public in August, are currently in a lock-in period under Securities and Exchange Board of India regulations for newly listed companies.
“Further upon the expiry of the lock-in over the promoter shares, the promoter will create a pledge over a portion of the promoter shares and make relevant disclosures in accordance with applicable laws,” the company said.
Aggarwal announced in August that Krutrim AI was working on artificial intelligence chips and its first chip, Bodhi 1, would be launched in 2026, followed by Bodhi 2 two years later.
The startup is also developing two other chips, Sarv 1 and Ojas. It has partnered with global semiconductor company Arm and Untether AI for the development of CPUs, AI chips, platforms and systems.
To support its AI and cloud initiatives, the company is also planning to scale its data centre capacity to 1 GW by 2028.
Meanwhile, Ola Electric is facing challenges in the electric two-wheeler market. Its market share declined by 6 percentage points sequentially in November to 24.8%, based on vehicle registration data from the government's Vahan portal. New vehicle registrations also fell 30% to 28,688 in November.
Service issues and rising customer complaints have further added to the company's woes, impacting its stock price and market capitalisation.
Despite these challenges, global brokerage firm Citi Research recently initiated coverage of Ola Electric with a "Buy" rating and a target price of Rs 90. Citi also acknowledged challenges in Ola Electric’s service reputation, but said it expects this to subside over the medium term as back-end supply chain catches up with volume growth.
Ola Electric has been actively expanding its product range. It recently launched two new electric scooter models—the S1 Z and Gig—targeted at gig economy workers and cost-conscious consumers in India.
