Ola Electric, the electric unit of ride-hailing company Ola, has acquired Amsterdam based Electric Scooter manufacturer Etergo. The acquisition will give a major push to Ola Electric’s ambition to manufacture its own two-wheeler electric scooter globally by next year.
Ola did not disclose the financial details about the deal and hence the exact value of the deal could not be ascertained.
“The future of Mobility is electric and the post-Covid-19 world presents an opportunity for us to accelerate the adoption of electric mobility globally……two wheelers will further emerge as the most preferred urban mobility paradigm around the world,” Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder & CEO, Ola said.
The buzz around electric vehicles in India as well as globally is hard to miss. But the success of electric vehicles in India will depend on the accelerated development of ecosystem and the central to this ecosystem is ‘charging station.’ According to a rough estimate, there are currently only 150 charging stations in India as compared to almost 20,000 charging stations in the U.S as of 2019.
The availability of a robust ecosystem in the U.S. was key to the success of Tesla. Analysts claim that India needs to follow Tesla like approach to ensure the success of electric vehicles.
To fast track the development of charging stations across the country, the Indian government has set an ambitious target of setting charging stations every three kilometers in the cities and every 25 Kms on both sides of the highway. According to a report published earlier this year, the Indian government has awarded the contract of developing 2,600 charging stations to state-run companies like NTPC, EESL and REIL.
About Etergo
Etergo (earlier known as Bolt Mobility) was founded by Bart Jacobsz Rosier and Marjin Flipse in 2014. The company’s main brand AppScooter is among the first electric scoter to run on a smartphone application (android app).
According to Crunchbase, the company has raised 21.3 Mn Euros through seven funding rounds. It had last raised funds in December last year through equity crowdfunding. Equity crowdfunding is a capital raising process carried out on a crowdfunding platform that enables people to invest in an early stage unlisted companies.
Etergo’s equity crowd funding request is already uploaded on equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs.com.
The company’s lead investors include Yoma James Kukor and leap funder. Its annual revenue is roughly estimated to be $30 Mn per year.