Aggarwal Pledges Ola Electric Stake To Fund ₹1,000 Cr Rights Issue

Bhavish Aggarwal is putting part of his Ola Electric holding behind the company’s next fundraising step, Inc42 reported, using a share pledge to finance his own participation in a proposed rights issue of as much as ₹1,000 Cr.

The pledge covers a 4.32% stake in the electric two-wheeler company.

Ola Electric linked the transaction only to Aggarwal’s subscription in the rights issue and disclosed that his securities had no other outstanding pledges.

The company also said the arrangement does not involve a sale of shares and keeps the promoter investing on the same terms as other shareholders.

The financing path runs through 20 Cr Ola Electric shares pledged to CTL Trusteeship Limited.

Those shares back non-convertible debt raised by Krutrim Data Centre Pvt Ltd, a promoter group entity owned by Aggarwal that is not operating the Krutrim SI Designs AI and cloud infrastructure business.

Proceeds from that debt are meant to pay for Aggarwal’s rights-issue commitment, while the pricing and borrowing terms remain undisclosed.

Aggarwal’s holding stood at 26.52% on June 30, 2026, based on the draft letter of offer.

The pledged shares account for about 16.3% of that stake.

His undertaking covers the full entitlement available to him, but the draft also permits renunciation to promoter group members or specified investors and allows subscription to extra or leftover shares if minimum public shareholding rules are met.

The rights issue is one piece of a ₹1,500 Cr capital plan.

The board approved the wider fundraising on September 5 and later authorised the rights issue on September 28.

Ola Electric has not yet set out the route for the additional ₹500 Cr beyond the rights issue.

The draft offer assigns ₹350 Cr to repayment or prepayment of borrowings at Ola Electric and its important subsidiaries, including related interest and prepayment costs.

Growth receives a larger operating bucket: ₹400 Cr is marked for manufacturing, research and development, stores, dealerships, service infrastructure, sales and marketing across electric mobility and energy storage.

The rest of the net proceeds are reserved for general corporate purposes, and management expects deployment across FY27 and FY28.

Shareholders would not pay the whole amount at once.

The partly paid-up structure calls for an application payment followed by a later call, with the draft schedule pointing to completion by October 31, 2027 unless the board changes the timetable.

A June qualified institutional placement raised ₹780.2 Cr and produced ₹744.9 Cr in net proceeds, split among debt repayment, growth projects and general corporate use.

The funding push arrives after a difficult operating year.

Q1 FY27 consolidated operating revenue dropped 45% year on year to ₹455 Cr, even as the net loss narrowed 21.5% to ₹336 Cr.

FY26 operating revenue was ₹2,253 Cr, down from ₹4,514 Cr in FY25, while electric two-wheeler deliveries declined from 3.59 Lakh units to 1.74 Lakh units.

September registrations reached 13,449 units, down 3.5% from August, leaving the company with about 6.5% of the E2W market in Vahan data cited for October 1.

Ola Electric has cast FY26 as a structural reset built around a leaner retail network, lower costs, stronger service operations and better unit economics.

Dealer-operated stores have opened in seven states, and the company plans more than 500 dealerships over the next two quarters as company-owned outlets move toward product experience centres.

The material unknown is still financial rather than strategic: investors can see how the promoter funds participation in the ₹1,000 Cr rights issue, but the remaining ₹500 Cr in the larger plan has no announced path.