Ola Raises $56M In First Funding Round

Ola Electric Mobility, which is backed by Indian ride-hailing company Ola, announced that it has raised 4 billion rupees ($56.4 million) in its first funding round.

According to Reuters, the funding was led by several of Ola’s early investors including Tiger Global and Matrix India.

The news comes right after India approved a plan to spend $1.4 billion to subsidize sales of electric and hybrid vehicles in an effort to curb pollution and the country’s need for fossil fuels. Last year, Ola Electric revealed that it aims to bring 1 million electric vehicles to the country in a few years.

This investment comes as some notable companies are looking to get into the electric vehicle business. Last month, Amazon led a $700 million equity investment in electronic automaker Rivian Automotive. Rivian has received roughly $1.15 billion in funding, and its R1S sport utility vehicle and R1T pickup reportedly had outstanding reviews at November’s Los Angeles Auto Show.

There was also the recent report that “megafleets” (tens of thousands of vehicles owned by certain companies) of Amazon delivery vans and trucks will be going electric, which will serve the need for last-mile retail delivery. This follows the eCommerce giant’s order of 20,000 Mercedes-Benz vans to expand its fleet.

And in 2017, Toyota announced that every car it sells will be available in an electric or hybrid model by 2025.  The automaker had previously disclosed its intention to make the first launch in China for its fully electric vehicle sales, but it is also planning to sell the cars in Japan, India, Europe and the U.S.

The battery and power technology for these cars will come from electronics company Panasonic. The electrified vehicles’ batteries will include some next-generation battery tech, as well as current generation lithium-ion models. Toyota plans to invest up to $13.3 billion through 2030 in battery development to help put itself on pace in the electric vehicle space.