Bhavish Aggarwal (born 28 August 1985) is an Indian entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of Ola Cabs; founder of Ola Electric;[1] and the founder of Krutrim, an Artificial intelligence (AI) company which became India’s first AI unicorn at a $1 billion valuation.[2]
Bhavish Aggarwal | |
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Born | |
Alma mater | IIT Bombay (B.Tech) |
Occupation | Entrepreneur |
Title | Co-founder and CEO of Ola Cabs Founder of Ola Electric Founder of Krutrim |
Spouse | Rajalakshmi Aggarwal |
Aggarwal was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2018. [3]
Aggarwal was born and brought up in Ludhiana, Punjab, in a Punjabi Hindu family.[4][5] He completed a bachelor's degree in computer science and engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 2008.[6] He started his career with Microsoft Research India as a research intern and later got reinstated as an assistant researcher.[7]
He began his career with Microsoft, where he worked for two years, filed two patents and published three papers in international journals.[6] In January 2011 he co-founded Ola Cabs with Ankit Bhati in Bengaluru.[8]
The idea for a cab company struck Aggarwal when he had a bad experience with a taxi, which led him and Ankit Bhati to co-found Ola Cabs in 2010.
In May 2020, Ola Cabs announced a huge layoff of around 5000 employees in a move to survive the economic repercussions of COVID-19. It had suffered an overwhelming loss of revenue by about 95%.[9] In a webinar addressed to the students of Bennet University, Bhavish said that the COVID-19 pandemic was about to accelerate the innovations in technologies. He claimed that the markets might move towards more car rentals and subscription-based ownerships of cars.[10]
In April 2022, An internal email to Ola employees was sent out, announcing that Bhavish Aggarwal would be stepping down from day-to-day operations of the company to focus on the future of Ola’s venture into electric vehicles and quick-commerce.[11]