Pay cuts for employees with fixed compensation of up to Rs 8 lakh have been reversed from August 1, while the rest will see restoration in a phased manner from October 2020.
Currently, the company is present in over 259 Indian cities, with over 8,700 buildings (hotels and homes) and more than 173,000 rooms.
In a 26-page order, the fair trade regulator said there exists a prima-facie case for investigation against MMT-Go and OYO for alleged violation of the provisions of Section 3(4) of the Competition Act.
OYO Rooms offers rooms for Rs 1,200-5,500 in all major cities.
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.
'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.'
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
Ghosh, 43, will be reporting to 25-year-old Ritesh Agarwal, who founded OYO with a single hotel in 2013.
'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.'
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.
'Son believes India has a significant opportunity in chip design, especially in creating IP that will be uniquely Indian.'
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has given green light to several mega initial public offerings (IPOs) last week, paving the way for bumper launches during the ongoing festival season. According to the update on Sebi's website, Hyundai Motor India, which will be the country's largest IPO of nearly Rs 25,000 crore, received the observation letter from the market regulator on September 24. The regulator also gave the final observations on the offer documents of Vishal Mega Mart and Swiggy.
The company has already put in place this digital register in Jaipur in Rajasthan and pilot projects are running in Haryana and Telangana
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.
Led by a new generation of entrepreneurs, India's family offices are shifting from traditional investments in physical and tangible assets like real estate to investing in technology, healthcare, and retail stocks. This new wave of family offices is engaging in stock market investments, including pre-IPO placements and secondary market operations. "Born into a world of technology, the next generation, especially those born after 2000, view technology as equally crucial as finance for running a business.
The dealers operating in the space have jumped nearly three times over the past two years.
With the Ram Mandir scheduled to open its doors to visitors in January, Ayodhya is expected to welcome travelers both from India and abroad.
'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.'
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.
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.
'With Ramaland, the tourism department is looking to attract children and adults alike. It'll be learning with entertainment.'
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.
Foreign investment in India's start-ups has plummeted 72 per cent to $4.58 billion so far, from $16.2 billion during the same period last year.
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.
As the clip went viral on social media, hospitality firm OYO took off from its platform the hotel located in north Delhi's Jahangirpuri.
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.
Goldman-HDFC JV and OYO Hotels & Homes are betting big on student housing, says Raghavendra Kamath.
Electric two-wheelers have zipped past the half-a-million registration mark and achieved a market penetration of 4 per cent at the fag end of Calendar 2022, according to data released by VAHAN. According to VAHAN data for the year (until December 27), 560,000 two-wheelers were registered in the country, up a staggering fourfold over 2021, when only 136,000 were registered, and when electric vehicle penetration was a mere 1.05 per cent. The total number of two-wheelers (internal combustion engine, or ICE, and electric) registered so far in 2022 stands at 14.5 million, up only 12.7 per cent over the previous calendar year.
India overtook China to add the most number of new unicorns--start-ups valued at $1 billion or more--in the first half of 2022 despite a funding winter haunting entrepreneurs in the south Asian nation. India added 14 new unicorns in the period (H1 2022) and China had 11, according to the Hurun Global Unicorn Index 2022. The US led the ranking by adding 138 start-ups in the unicorn club.
'Consumers are willing to increase travel spends by 20-30 per cent versus pre-pandemic.'
After years of being sequestered by the pandemic, some intrepid travellers are planning to settle their score with the novel coronavirus. With fewer or no travel curbs, they are eager to get back on the road, again. Hotels and tour operators, too, are eager to shed excess Covid baggage. And this year's Diwali promises to add that extra layer sparkle with the introduction of new flights.
The data shows the average room rate of two-star hotels increased by 8.5 per cent in FY18, even though it lagged on occupancy at 61.8 per cent, down 1.4 per cent year-on-year
The first step to keeping your job safe, experts tell Rediff.com's Divya Nair, is understanding why layoffs happen.
Keen to back start-ups while they are half-unicorns, SoftBank plans to invest $100 million in a firm with $500-million valuation.
Japanese tech investor SoftBank may end up investing around $1 billion in India in 2022, nearly a third of what it did last year, according to people closely tracking its plans. Last year, SoftBank undertook investments of $3.2 billion in 12 deals. In the first five months of CY22, the giant investor has invested $400-500 million in five deals.
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).
As the deadly second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic rages on, startups and technology firms are realising the burnout effect it is having on employees. Many have shortened their work weeks to four days, while others have made provisions for more time off for employees to help them rejuvenate or care for loved ones.
Leading hotels are taking all precautions but the unusual service the staff has been pressed into puts them at the forefront of COVID fight.