When it comes to related party transactions, Ola probably has more "gas" than Blusmart

BluSmart is a crazy story when it comes to related party transactions and financial gymnastics. But what about Ola?

Ola Cabs (now Ola Consumer) has raised almost $5 Bil in its history of over 15 years. But the company is worth only $2B right now, and that can go even lower in times to come.

Then comes Ola Electric, which has raised $1.5B in its history, and is worth $2.5B at the moment. And that is absolutely sure to go down in the next few days. That balloon is out of gas.

But the status of balloons notwithstanding, the interesting part is that Ola Electric could only exist because Ola Cabs existed. The scooty company's entire distribution was premeditated on Ola Cabs' app. In fact, a large part of its sales also depended on Ola's bike fleet. This was essentially a related party transaction. No doubts about that.

However, none of that got reflected in Ola Electric's cap table. None of Ola Cabs' original investors got any stake in Ola Electric, despite them having essentially incubated this new company. Mr. Aggarwal just woke up one day and bailed out on the entire Ola Cabs team (even its co-founder Ankit Bhati) and started making scooties at Ola Electric, all while actively benefiting from Ola Cabs in every way possible, and not giving it any stake in return.

This was a major heist story which had everyone gasp with, "Oh, bhai! Sahi mei? Kamaal hai, yaar...".

Everyone but Ola Electric's investors. Softbank, Tiger, Temasek, Matrix, et al; they were all apparently cool with a founder bailing out on a struggling company for which he had raised $5B, all while using its entire platform, distribution and networks, for a new company in which he's the majority shareholder. While also withdrawing a salary from his old company in full.

Can you believe this?

As if that wasn't interesting enough, it's now coming out that ANI Technologies (Ola Cabs' parent) is transferring brand Ola's IP to Mr. Aggarwal's family office! And that is despite the company's shareholders' "unhappiness" on the move. Haha!

Now this should have been enough rigmarole for a founder of not one, but two struggling companies with massive financial obligations to take care of. But this is where another story started for Mr. Aggarwal - Krutrim.

Krutrim is yet another fascinating tale! And this time as well, Matrix Partners proved to be the faithful "partners" for Mr. Aggarwal. They invested $50M in seed money at a $1B valuation in this "AI company", with the rest $230M coming from Mr. Aggarwal as a "personal" investment.

But wait. How does Mr. Aggarwal have $230M? He doesn't. So what about the "personal investment"?

Well, he pledged 8% of his shares of - wait for it - Ola Electric, to build Krutrim.

But 8% of his shares in Ola Electric would only mean $72M? Where is the rest $160M coming from? Well, that's fairydust. We'll probably have to rub Allaadin's Chirag to find out.

For now Ola Cabs, Ola Electric, and Krutrim are all funny jokes, with only Mr. Aggarwal laughing.

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