Uncovering Ola’s strategy of going from ride-hailing to EVs and AI

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Hi there,

I love playing strategy games. One of my all-time favorites is still the Age of Empires franchise, which I could play all day long when I was a teenager.

Many of my friends found these games boring and not as stimulating as role-playing games – they do require a certain level of patience and planning to win.

My strategy was to have the best army when facing the enemy, so I spent a lot of time just upgrading my forces.

Likewise, startup founders need to have a strategy to scale their businesses and carry out their expansion plans.

In our first Big Story, my colleague Lokesh wrote about Indian ride-hailing firm Ola’s unique strategy, with expansions into the electric vehicle and AI segments. That’s unlike other players – such as Uber, Grab, or GoTo – that have expanded into food delivery and fintech.

In the story, we outline an often-used pattern by Ola co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal, which involves raising funds, making acquisitions, and building on top of these businesses. This strategy was deployed when Ola entered the electric vehicle space and now is being used to expand into the generative AI business with Krutrim AI.

Speaking about founder strategies, in our second Big Story, my colleague Scott explores Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino’s game plan to break the “monopoly” of cloud giants Microsoft, AWS, and Google. Ardoino hopes to do this by reviving a technology that caused a lot of damage to the music industry in the 1990s.

He’s looking to combine P2P networks with Web3 and end-to-end encryption on a new software development platform. Could this combo attract litigation and regulatory attention? Maybe, but Ardoino remains unfazed.

And since founder strategies are shaped by past experiences, I explore in Making Waves how the partners at founder-focused VC firm Febe Ventures use their 30 years of combined experience to guide entrepreneurs through even the toughest of times.

— Collin

THE BIG STORY

1️⃣ Ola rides on acquisitions for success, but will this work for its AI play?

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Making Waves

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