Ola Consumer’s Race Against Time

In the summer of 2021, Bhavish Aggarwal was arguably India’s most audacious tech entrepreneur. 

Ola Cabs (now Ola Consumer), the ride-hailing behemoth he had founded along with a fellow IIT Bombay engineer Ankit Bhati in 2010, commanded a healthy market share in India’s ride-hailing sector. 

Backed by SoftBank, Tiger Global and Temasek, it raised $139 Mn at a valuation of $7.3 Bn in late 2021, perhaps the last major round in what was the peak year of funding for Indian startups.

And that’s before the big push with Ola Electric that followed in the next few years. Aggarwal was somewhere near his peak as an entrepreneur in 2020 and 2021. 

What has followed over the next five years is a cautionary tale. 

Ola’s extraordinary ambition has collapsed from institutional neglect and rivals saw the gap left behind to capitalise. All the while Ola Consumer slipped further and further into irrelevance. 

On June 3, 2026, Vanguard, one of the world’s largest asset managers and an early Ola Cabs investor marked down the value of its investment, and valued the company at just $70 Mn. From the $7.3 Bn peak, Ola’s valuation has seen a 90%-plus haircut.

And when considering that last year, Vanguard’s valuation estimate for Ola Cabs was around $1.25 Bn, one can only surmise that it has been a bleak year for Ola.

ANI Technologies, Ola Consumer’s parent company, posted a 42% collapse in operating revenue to ₹1,171Cr  in FY25, down from ₹2,012 Cr in FY24. Net losses nearly doubled to ₹662 Cr, and cash reserves halved in a single year from ₹1,395 Cr to ₹653 Cr as of March 2025. 

FY26 has been anything but pleasant. Moody’s and S&P Global Ratings downgraded the company to credit rating, warning that available cash will ‘fall substantially short’ of meeting debt service obligations and capital expenditure requirements through December 2026.

That’s when a $65 Mn term B secure loan comes due, which is why the next few months will be extremely critical for the company. To avoid a default on the term B loan, Ola must maintain at least $26 Mn in cash reserves at all times. 

The clock is ticking.

Sources in the ride-hailing industry tell us that Ola Consumer is in talks for an acquisition – not the first time that such speculation has come up. 

Ola meanwhile denied any acquisition talks.

“Ola Consumer and its management are not engaged in any discussions to merge, sell, or otherwise transfer control of the business,” according to an official statement from Ola group.

When Ola Cabs Stopped Being the Point

Those close to the company say the beginning of the end started in late 2018 when Aggarwal’s focus shifted to Ola Electric. This was surprising because Ola’s dominance in the market was real, and Uber India was spending heavily to eat Ola’s market share. 

And then, according to multiple industry insiders, Aggarwal began to disengage. He believed that EVs would define the future of Indian mobility. 

“Bhavish saw himself as someone who could revolutionise the EV industry in India. The mobility businesses seemingly had given him an edge. And besides, there was a lot of government push for adoption of EVs and Make In India future. Aggarwal saw himself as the frontrunner for availing government subsidies and began working obsessively for his EV company vision,” said a former Ola Cabs CXO privy to the company’s internal operations around 2019 and 2020.

What Aggarwal underestimated was the toll that such a multipronged strategy might take. As Ola Electric reached a valuation of $1 Bn by July 2019, sources recalled a transfer of institutional resources and structural bias towards the new business. 

Ola Consumer’s marketing, design, engineering, and product teams that had helped build competitive differentiation in ride-hailing were systematically redeployed toward building Ola Electric. 

Senior executives began to leave as they saw the new priorities for Aggarwal and those in his inner circle. 

“Bhavish can mobilise resources and scale fast. That works well for businesses like Ola Cabs where rapid rollout and operations win. But in AI and arguably in EV too you face global giants from day one. Either you find a niche and keep iterating for years, or you directly compete with the biggest players with sustained product focus.” another Ola executive added.

Ola saw the departure of the CFO, the chief business officer, and eventually its CEO Hemant Bakish, who quit in April 2024, with Aggarwal stepping in to run the business directly.

As revenue growth stalled, Ola began a restructuring exercise to cut costs. This was followed by a further 5% workforce reduction at Ola Electric in January 2026 along with appointment of key executives. 

With each exit, Aggarwal found himself progressively more isolated, surrounded by fewer and fewer people willing or able to challenge him. 

Rapido, Uber, And The Collapse Of A Duopoly

The current state of Ola is largely surprising because it was the market leader in India’s ride-hailing duopoly. 

Ola and Uber India together controlled approximately 90% of the market, but while Uber India strengthened its supply chain and tech platform to bring in efficiencies, Ola’s competitive position began to degrade from multiple directions.

On the demand side, Ola’s relationship with its driver-partners had become structurally toxic, and the major breaking point was the contentious 30% commission model. Drivers, who had been attracted by Ola’s car ownership plans, were also stuck with high EMI payments, and many abandoned their vehicles around the pandemic. 

On the consumer end, the experience was marred by subpar customer survival quality, poor product features and no new innovation.  

And it was this gap that Rapido looked to exploit, even as Uber India continued to pull ahead of Ola. 

Today, Uber and Rapido are the two largest players in this space, with Ola among the long tail of players. BluSmart could have been the third player but shut down due to corporate governance irregularities, leaving Rapido and Uber with a clear advantage to grow and add market share. 

The bike taxi segment was its go-to-market strategy, but eventually Rapido latched on to the gap left by Ola Cabs and entered autos, four wheelers and other segments. It also added travel bookings last year and entered the food delivery space. 

In many ways, Rapido is doing what Ola Consumer failed to do i.e offer multiple services to the same set of engaged users.  

Ola, according to insiders, dismissed the Rapido threat for too long, and this proved to be a folly. 

Rapido’s zero-commission model resonated powerfully with drivers. Its product quality is widely acknowledged to be superior to Ola’s, and its rapid iteration in terms of features struck a chord with cost-sensitive urban commuters. 

The company entered the four-wheeler cab segment only in late 2023 and yet by March 2025, it had already carved out more than 20% of cab market share. In the 18 months since then, Rapido has only added to this number and has displaced Ola from the top of the food chain. 

In fact Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi named Rapido not Ola as its primary competition in India. 

Bhavish Aggarwal’s Original Bet Fails

Where does Ola Consumer and Aggarwal’s cab-hailing business go from here? There is speculation in the industry of an acquisition, especially because the previously mooted IPO plans seem to have now been shelved. Ola, meanwhile continues to term such acquisition talks as “baseless reports”.

Ola has been the subject of acquisition talks in the past too, with Uber India previously coming up as a potential suitor. Earlier, Uber and Ola were said to be in talks for a merger, with common investor SoftBank said to be driving the deal. 

That did not materialise, and it’s not clear where Ola will end up if at all it goes for an acquisition today.

The fact that Rapido has managed to pull off what Ola Cabs and Ola Consumer meant to do all these years would definitely sting those who have stuck to the Ola mission. 

And as for Aggarwal, it’s somewhat perturbing that Ola Consumer is not the biggest problem at hand. One of India’s most revered entrepreneurs is also pulling Ola Electric out of its post-IPO sales rut, and has the unenviable task of reviving Ola Krutrim as well.  

Ola Cabs made Aggarwal a household name at least as far as Indian startup founders are concerned. But there is a serious existential threat on the horizon for Bhavish’s Aggarwal first big bet. 

[Edited By Nikhil Subramaniam]

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