Ola Electric Redemption Arc, Libas’ Next Frontier & More

Ola Electric On Recovery Path

Ola Electric appears to be on its redemption arc. After months of sliding market share and service complaints, the EV maker is trying to chart a comeback with its in-house battery stack and steep price cuts. It seems Bhavish Aggarwal may have found the ingredients for a lasting turnaround.

The Battery Breakthrough: In the past month, the Ola Electric stock has surged more than 56% on the BSE. The primary catalyst for this rally has been multiple factors:

• Unveiling its in-house 46100 Lithium Iron Phosphate cell, designed for both mobility and energy storage
• Securing PLI certification for Roadster X+ 4.5 kWh, strengthening its case for sops
• Improving sales
• Reducing prices of key products

A Full Stack Pivot: By bringing cell manufacturing in-house and ramping up its Gigafactory capacity to 6 GWh, Ola Electric is making a massive play for vertical integration. This has already allowed the company to slash the price of its multiple products and pass these cost efficiencies directly to consumers. As a result, the OEM’s registrations soared 139% MoM to 9,496 units in March.

Fixing Service Friction: Beyond the hardware, the EV maker is also trying to fix its service reputation. It now claims a same-day resolution rate of over 80% for service issues. The company is also rolling out extended warranties up to eight years and assured buyback schemes to repair its relationship with its base of 10 Lakh customers.

Market Sentiment Turns: Investors seem to be responding to the company’s ongoing turnaround. The company’s shares have surged 28% on the BSE in the past week, closing yesterday with an upper circuit and a m-cap of about ₹16,029 Cr. However, the stock is still trading at ₹36.34, well below its IPO price of ₹76. 

While the jury is still out on whether this is a real turnaround, here is how the markets are responding to Ola Electric’s plausible recovery…

From The Editor’s Desk

Libas’ Next Big Frontier

• When Sidhant Keshwani joined his family’s textile business in 2014, India’s ethnic wear market was still fragmented, trust-driven and largely offline. Libas broke in with a simple proposition – affordable, functional Indian workwear for women sold online.
• Instead of chasing growth-at-all-costs, Libas stayed bootstrapped for nearly a decade and treated profitability as a core principle. This discipline shaped everything from marketing to expansion, helping the brand cross roughly ₹600 Cr in revenue in FY25.
• With ARR crossing ₹1,000 Cr in FY26, Libas is now pushing into quick commerce, fragrances, beauty and even the UAE. But the next phase looks harder and will demand tighter supply chains, more working capital and sharper execution.

Investors Shift Towards Domestic LPs  

• In a year that is being shaped by geopolitical volatility and a choppy funding climate, Indian VCs are increasingly leaning on domestic limited partners (LPs). As per an Inc42 survey, 74% of the investors prefer Indian-origin LPs for the next funding cycle.
• The shift is more about predictability as fund managers say that homegrown LPs are better aligned with the realities of the domestic startup market and less likely to benchmark Indian returns against mature ecosystems like the US and Europe. 
• Much of the new domestic appetite is coming from family offices and HNIs that are no longer treating venture capital as a side bet, but as a structured asset class alongside stocks and real estate.

Nava Bags $22 Mn

• The AI startup, earlier called Kluisz.ai, has raised ₹204 Cr in its Series A round led by Greenoaks to set up its APAC headquarters in Singapore, shore up its tech stack and ramp up hiring. 
• Founded in 2025, Nava is building a full-stack neocloud platform that offers GPU-as-a-service to businesses for running compute-heavy workloads. With the latest round, Nava has raised $31.6 Mn to date.
• The round comes amid growing neocloud adoption on the back of local data sovereignty mandates, demand for AI compute and cost-sensitive scaling requirements. The global neocloud market is projected to become a $236 Bn opportunity by 2033.

TR Capital To Invest $1 Bn In India

• The PE firm has committed $1 Bn towards secondary deals in the country over the next five years. To deepen its India focus, the investment firm has appointed Umang Agarwal as the country managing director.
• TR Capital has also appointed Kushal Agarwal and Sagar Sheth as senior hires. In addition to its existing offices in Mumbai and Delhi NCR, the PE firm has now also opened a new office in Bengaluru to ramp up its presence in the country.
• Since entering India in 2008, the PE firm has invested in startups like Flipkart, Lenskart, Fibe and MoEngage. It claims to have so far completed 50 secondary deals and manages $1.5 Bn in total capital commitments across Asia. 

Pluckk Bags ₹100 Cr

• The D2C grocery startup has raised around $10.8 Mn in its Series A1 round led by existing backer Euro Gulf Investment to invest in AI, establish offline retail presence, and expand into tier II cities and international markets in the next six months. 
• Founded in 2017, Pluckk sells fruits, vegetables, meal kits, cold-pressed juices, soups and fruit-based snacks via its ‘farm-to-door’ concept. With 45+ SKUs, the company claims to cater to customers in 50 cities. It has raised $26 Mn to date.
• Pluckk claims to have clocked a 25% YoY growth over the past two years, with an annualised revenue run rate of ₹100 Cr in FY25. It now plans to double down on its distribution over the next year. 

Inc42 Markets

Inc42 Startup Spotlight

How Intrinsic is Turning Waste Into Biochemicals?

Carbon capture has long promised to help heavy industries decarbonise, but the economics have remained stubbornly weak. Jharkhand-based Intrinsic Foundries is trying to fix this problem by using algae to convert carbon into valuable biochemicals.

Turning Waste Into Gold: Founded in 2023, Intrinsic Foundries is building algae-based carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) platforms for industrial flue gas and wastewater streams. Its premise is simple – let microalgae consume carbon dioxide, then harvest the biomass for downstream products such as proteins, pigments, lipids and other biomolecules.

The company claims that this biomass can be used as an ingredient in premium cosmetics, nutraceuticals, cosmetics and other advanced materials. 

Engineering The Capture: Rather than relying on open ponds, the startup uses a proprietary extrusion system to build hollow tubular photobioreactors. That helps reduce contamination, evaporation and space requirements, while making the system more suitable for industrial sites such as steel, cement and chemical plants. It offers both a buyback model and an end-to-end licensing model for industrial customers.

Eye On The Horizon: Backed by Transition VC, the Jharkhand-based startup now aims to expand research, run more commercial pilots and grow its team. Having already worked with CSIR, IITs and IIM Ahmedabad, the company claims that one of its pilots captured 85-90% of CO2 emissions at a thermal power plant.

With India’s CCUS market still in its infancy, can Intrinsic Foundries help industries decarbonise with the help of algae? 

Infographic Of The Day

From Wakefit to Furlenco, India’s furniture brands are now selling entire living experiences. Here is how they are completely rewriting the playbook…

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