StartUps
Ankush Aggarwal Returns To Ola Cabs Ride-Hailing Business Amid Restructuring


By Kajal Sharma - 14 May 2024 01:22 PM
Ankush Aggarwal, brother of Ola Cabs founder Bhavish Aggarwal, has rejoined the ride-hailing company following a period with Ola Electric amid organizational changes at Ola Cabs.Ankush Aggarwal is a member of the "CXO team," as the top executive group is internally called.This action follows the resignation of Hemant Bakshi, the company's CEO, a few months after he joined the startup.Bakshi quit his job a month ago. Even though he left Hindustan Unilever to join Ola Cabs in September 2023, the firm announced his appointment in January of this year.According to ET, Aggarwal will have a variety of duties at Ola Cabs, similar to what he did at the manufacturer of electric vehicles. He is also scheduled to take up the position of CEO of Ola Financial Services.He was Ola Electric's chief business officer.Ola has been contacted by Inc42 to provide feedback on the development. The response will determine how the story is updated. It is important to remember that Ola Cabs and Ola Financial Services are separate entities from Ola Electric Mobility, which was established by Bhavish Aggarwal, and are under the ownership of ANI Technologies.In addition to Ankush Aggarwal, whose loan startup Avail Finance was purchased by ANI Technologies in 2022, other executives on the CXO team include Sidharth Shakdher, chief business officer, and Kartik Gupta, chief financial officer. Gupta and Shakdher have both worked with Ola Cabs for a short time—less than 1.5 years.According to the article, Bhavish Aggarwal is likely to take the lead in the business following these modifications and is reportedly focused on making a profit. The current management at the company will collaborate with Bhavish Aggarwal, who is basically back reviewing the daily statistics of the ride-hailing service, an insider told ET.
In India, Ola Cabs, which was established in 2010, is a competitor of Uber and BluSmart. The business has let go of workers in two rounds of layoffs in the previous two years prior to Bakshi's resignation. It let go of 200 workers from Ola Cabs, Ola Electric, and Ola Financial Services in January of last year. From INR 1,522.3 Cr in the prior fiscal year to INR 772.2 Cr in FY23, ANI Technologies' consolidated net loss almost halved. From INR 1,970.4 Cr in FY22 to INR 2,799.3 Cr in FY23, operating revenue increased by 42%. Ola Cabs recently stated that, in contrast to an EBITDA loss of INR 66 Cr in the same period last year, its India mobility division broke even with "segment-adjusted" EBITDA of over INR 250 Cr in FY23. The