OYO founder Ritesh Agarwal has invited name suggestions for its parent firm Oravel Stays, in a strategic move as the global travel tech platform prepares to launch its IPO and looks to have more premium segment offerings. There is a high possibility that the name chosen through the exercise may end up being the name of the premium hotels app that OYO has been working to launch in the near future, people familiar with the strategy told PTI.
Global travel tech firm OYO plans to file its Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) in November, eyeing a $7-8 billion valuation for its IPO, sources said. The company is expected to approach its board with the proposal next week, people familiar with the matter told PTI.
A deal, where a founder has brought back stake from early investors before an initial public offering, is unheard of in India or pretty much anywhere else, analysts pointed out.
The National Company Law Tribunal has directed to start insolvency proceedings against OYO Hotels and Homes Pvt Ltd on March 30, according to a public announcement by the interim resolution professional.
Actors Madhuri Dixit, Amrita Rao, and Bollywood producer Gauri Khan are among celebrities who bought shares of travel tech platform OYO over the past few months. Gauri Khan bought 2.4 million shares of OYO during the recent Series G funding round concluded in August 2024 where the company raised over Rs 1,400 crore from a consortium of investors, sources told PTI.
'Today, we are at a stage where we have launched a voice-to-voice model that supports 14 Indian languages.'
Oravel Stays Limited, the parent company of travel-tech firm OYO, has received in-principle approval from BSE and NSE to list on the respective bourses, sources said. OYO has filed preliminary documents for a Rs 8,430 crore initial public offering (IPO). The offering will consist of a fresh issue of shares of up to Rs 7,000 crore and an offer-for-sale of as much as Rs 1,430 crore.
Hospitality firm OYO is looking to raise $600 million (over Rs 4,380 crore) in debt from the US institutional investors to service its existing loans, sources in know of the matter said on Thursday. The company is raising $600 million in a term loan B (TLB) structure, the sources said. The company is taking the TLB to service its existing loans which are on higher interest rates, they added.
Hospitality firm OYO is planning to raise up to $1.2 billion (around Rs 8,000 crore) through an initial public offering and is expected to file the draft red herring prospectus with Sebi next week, sources told PTI on Thursday. OYO has appointed investment banks like JPMorgan, Citi and Kotak Mahindra Capital to manage its public issue, they added. Comments from OYO could not be obtained at the time of filing the story. The proposed initial public offer (IPO) plan of the hospitality firm follows the spectacular success of Zomato's IPO that ended with a bumper oversubscription on July 16, and was biggest since March 2020.
Hospitality firm OYO will be shifting to a 4-day work week, OYO founder and group CEO Ritesh Agarwal said in a tweet on Wednesday, as the company also launched a no questions asked flexible infinite paid leaves initiative. Agarwal in a tweet noted that COVID-19 continues to test the physical and mental well-being of people. One thing that truly matters is having more time for our loved ones and ourselves.
'Co-living is a phenomenon that is bound to strike the right chord with young people everywhere and India will lead the charge as the testing ground for all such ideas.'
Currently, the company is present in over 259 Indian cities, with over 8,700 buildings (hotels and homes) and more than 173,000 rooms.
Oyo has recently undergone large-scale corporate restructuring, setting up several subsidiaries and bifurcating operations globally.
SoftBank-backed OYO now 100,000 rooms brand, eyes another 100,000 by Mar 1
Oravel Stays, the parent company behind the travel tech brand Oyo, is eyeing to clock Rs 100 crore in Q4FY24 profit after tax (PAT) and a 20 per cent revenue growth for FY24, according to informed sources. These numbers were part of an internal review meeting between founder Ritesh Agarwal and senior management earlier this week, where he spoke about the company's profitability trajectory and growth in business.
SoftBank-backed hospitality major OYO is planning to reduce the number of shares it aims to sell through public listing because of reduced capital requirements and technology headwinds. This comes at a time when valuations of start-ups, including that of OYO, have taken a hit. "OYO earlier filed papers for its IPO (initial public offering) based on its funding requirements at the time.
'Customer expectation and need was quite limited when we started in 2013.' 'Now the expectation is little more and a lot of hard work is needed again.'
Oravel Stays - which operates hospitality tech firm OYO - on Friday pre-filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus with stock market regulator Sebi, sources said. Sources close to the company told PTI, OYO may launch its initial public offering (IPO) around Diwali this year. Unlike the traditional route where companies have to launch the IPO within 12 months from the Sebi approval, or final observation; in the pre-filing route, an IPO can be floated within 18 months from the date of Sebi's final comments.
Zostel could get upwards of $600 million if arbitration goes through.
Musk said on Friday that he believes India-US ties are "trending positive" and that he favours an enhanced trade partnership between the two nations.
One of the implications of the new strategic objectives for 2020, is that, like the leadership team, OYO will reorganise more teams across businesses and functions.
Ritesh Agarwal, founder of Oyo Hotels and Homes, seems to be making all the right moves. In a quick chat with Karan Choudhury and Neha Alawadhi, Agarwal explains the moves he has made in the past 12 months to make his operations global.
The company's growth is fuelled by its success in China with presence in 337 cities with over 500,000 rooms, followed by growth in Indonesia with presence in 80 cities and over 20,000 rooms and other regions in Asia
This e-series funding round also makes OYO the most valued hospitality company in the country, ahead of the Tata group's Indian Hotels Company, which owns the Taj brand of hotels, and EIH, which owns the Oberoi brand of hotels.
The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, has entered into a partnership with the Startup Policy Forum (SPF), a premier industry organisation representing India's leading new-age companies.
'Son believes India has a significant opportunity in chip design, especially in creating IP that will be uniquely Indian.'
'80% of start ups fail because they don't have a support system to help them in the very early phase.' 'It's not just an idea that takes an entrepreneur through the initial three years of journey.' 'What plays a definitive role in making a start-up successful is idea+team+capital+mentors+access to a larger ecosystem.'
Online travel portals are flooded with flight and train bookings, hotels teeming with requests for accommodation, and spiritual merchandise on e-commerce platforms is selling like hotcakes. As the consecration ceremony of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on January 22 draws near, Indians across the country are putting their travelling boots on as the temple frenzy catches on. India's largest travel technology (traveltech) platform MakeMyTrip (MMT) has witnessed a substantial four-fold increase in bookings for Ayodhya compared to the previous year.
Layoffs, corporate restructuring, governance and most importantly profitability: The 14 Indian startups that plan IPOs this year are pulling out all the stops to ensure successful market debuts.
Unacademy on Monday said it has raised $440 million (about Rs 3,270.8 crore) in funding from a clutch of investors including Temasek, General Atlantic, and Softbank Vision Fund, valuing the edtech major at $3.44 billion. The investment is expected to help Unacademy expand its offerings, deepen its presence and compete more aggressively against rivals such as Byju's in the burgeoning ed-tech space in India that has been witnessing strong uptake amid the pandemic. The series H round was led by Temasek, with super pro-rata participation from General Atlantic, Tiger Global, and Softbank Vision Fund, a statement said.
Following their passion paid off for Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth with their fantasy sports platform Dream11 entering the unicorn club with a valuation of over $1 billion.
As regular promotional discounts and offers rolled out by well-funded apps determine the demand trend, online hospitality aggregators face growing discontent from restaurants and hotels over commissions and pricing power.
'The success of one or two IPOs does not dictate whether the upcoming IPOs will be successful or not, but it certainly indicates that the markets and investors are enthusiastic about startup IPOs.'
A top management leadership team from SoftBank has been coming to India in the last few days to meet the founders of start-ups and other investors, signalling the country's emergence as a pivotal market for the global investment giant. Based on current estimates, India accounts for nearly 10 per cent ($20 billion) of SoftBank's invested assets under management (AUM) globally. That makes the country its third largest market after the US and China.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday met top officials of the finance and corporate affairs ministries to review the implementation of various announcements of the Union Budget FY24. "The finance minister underlined the importance of continuous assessment of progress to ensure that various announcements are implemented in a time-bound manner," the finance ministry said in a tweet. Sitharaman also discussed in detail various issues on the digital competition laws with Rajeev Chandrashekhar, the minister of state for entrepreneurship, skill development, electronics and technology.
Funding winter and corporate governance woes separated the men from the boys in the country's startup space in 2023 that saw funds into the segment tapering to just around $8 billion. All said, investors are hopeful of strong growth of the maturing startup ecosystem in the new year. Edtech and health tech segments that grew exponentially during the pandemic plunged into an abyss of financial uncertainties, with several firms shuttering their business, and valuation of prominent players like BYJU'S and PharmEasy plummeting 85-90 per cent.
Rishad Premji, chairman of IT services major Wipro, saw his compensation for FY23 decline by almost 50 per cent year-on-year, due to a fall in the firm's profit. According to the Form 20-F, filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission by Wipro, Premji's compensation for FY23 was $951,353, down 50 per cent from $1,819,022 in FY22. "Rishad A Premji is entitled to a commission at the rate of 0.35 per cent on incremental consolidated net profits of Wipro Limited over the previous fiscal year. However, in light of the fact that the incremental consolidated net profits for fiscal year 2023 was negative, the Company determined that no commission was payable for fiscal year 2023 to Mr Rishad A. Premji," said the company in the filing.
For a segment that thrives on promise more than performance, the country's start-up ecosystem is refusing to get carried away by the funding this calendar year. This has created the highest level of uninvested venture capital in seven years as investors wait for corrections in the working and - more importantly - valuation of start-ups while looking for cockroaches instead of unicorns. "Investors are now keen to invest in companies that have good top and bottom lines.
The drying up of funds for a number of start-ups is affecting the firms' unicorn status across the globe. The past six months have seen the valuations of 147 unicorns drop, of which 71 were from the US and 29 from China, according to the latest Hurun Global Unicorn Index 2022. Eighty-one unicorns from across the globe saw their valuations drop below $1 billion-the threshold for a start-up to be labelled unicorn-from last year.
Indian startups have raised $42 billion in 2021, up from $11.5 billion in the previous year, a report by Orios Venture Partners said. The report titled 'The Indian Tech Unicorn Report 2021' said India saw 46 unicorns (companies with $1 billion valuations) in 2021 alone, more than doubling the total number of unicorns to 90. These include ShareChat, Cred, Meesho, Nazara, Moglix, MPL, Grofers (now Blinkit), upGrad, Mamaearth, GlobalBees, Acko, Spinny and others. India - with 90 unicorns - is the third-largest unicorn hub behind the US (487) and China (301), and ahead of the UK (39).
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