Ola's valuation slashed by more than half by Vanguard

Leading US asset manager Vanguard has further slashed its holding in ride-hailing major Ola by more than half, which takes the Bhavish Aggarwal-run company's valuation down to nearly $3.5 billion from $7.3 billion at the end of 2021. According to a TechCrunch report, citing Vanguard's filings, the investment firm has cut the worth of its shares in Ani Technologies, Ola's holding firm, by 51.6%.

"The asset manager marked down the holding of its Ola shares to $25 million, from the $51.7 million purchase price years ago, the filings showed," according to the report.

Vanguard had valued its Ola's shares at about $33.8 million in February this year. In May, Vanguard had slashed Ola's valuation by 35% amid global macroeconomic conditions, reducing its valuation to about $4.8 billion.

Ola has raised more than $3.9 billion over the years, according to public data.

IPO-bound Ola Electric has also recorded an operating loss of $136 million (roughly Rs 1,116 crore) and revenue of $335 million (roughly Rs 2,750 crore), missing its revenue goal disclosed publicly.

The company reported sales of over 1,50,000 electric scooters for FY23, according to a Reuters report.

In the first two months of FY23, Ola Electric claimed to have surpassed Rs 500 crore in revenue and was on track to surpass $1 billion by year's end. In January, Ola laid off 200 employees from its Ola Cabs, Ola Electric and Ola Financial Services verticals as part of the "restructuring" exercise.

Ola joins a growing list of Indian unicorns who have significantly lost their valuations. Invesco lowered Swiggy's valuation by almost half to $5.5 billion in earlier this year while leading US investment firm Fidelity reportedly slashed the estimated worth of its holding in homegrown conversational engagement platform Gupshup by over 20% in a month.