Ola Electric to Raise ₹2,000 Crore for Battery Arm Ola Cell Technologies

Ola Electric has launched a process to raise up to ₹2,000 crore through a partial stake sale in its battery subsidiary, Ola Cell Technologies (OCT), according to people familiar with the matter. OCT operates a lithium-ion cell manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu with a current installed capacity of 1.5 GWh, with plans to expand this to 6 GWh before the close of the current financial year. Investment banks Avendus and Motilal Oswal have been brought on board to manage the fundraising, news agency PTI has reported.

The move is part of Ola Electric's broader effort to restructure its operations and strengthen its balance sheet as the company works to turn its business around. The stake sale will also help establish a market valuation for the battery asset, which has not previously been independently valued. Sources say its distinctive nature has already drawn unsolicited interest from financial investors, among them several prominent sovereign wealth funds.

The gigafactory, which required an upfront outlay of ₹3,500 crore, represents a significant stride towards building domestic battery cell manufacturing capability in India, a priority as the country looks to reduce its reliance on imported cells and develop a self-sufficient EV supply chain. The plant is also intended to serve energy storage applications across sectors beyond two-wheelers.

OCT's Battery Innovation Centre employs more than 200 specialists recruited from leading global firms, and has assembled a portfolio of close to 400 patents. Its research spans several cell chemistries, including NMC, LFP, LMFP and LMR, as well as multiple cell formats such as cylindrical, prismatic and solid-state.

The wider context for OCT's ambitions is India's target of sourcing 50 per cent of its energy from renewables by 2030. The inherent mismatch between when renewable power is generated and when it is consumed means that storage infrastructure will play an increasingly central role, with a substantial portion of renewable electricity expected to pass through storage systems before it reaches end users. Ola has already brought residential battery energy storage systems (BESS) to market and is planning to move into commercial-scale storage, addressing the inefficiencies that arise when electricity from coal, solar, wind and hydro generation is fed directly into consumption without buffering.

On the manufacturing side, Ola has developed a dry electrode production process, widely regarded as one of the more consequential advances in lithium-ion battery manufacturing in recent years. The company has used this technique to produce its 4680-format Bharat Cell, which is now in commercial production at the gigafactory and has been fitted in Ola Electric vehicles for over six months.