The development comes at a time when Softbank is learnt to be looking at investing a mammoth amount of funding in the hospitality firm for increasing its shareholding in the company.
Softbank-backed Oyo on July 19 announced that its founder and group chief executive, Ritesh Agarwal, has signed a $2 billion primary and secondary management investment round to buy back some of the company’s shares from its existing investors.
Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequoia India are selling part of their holdings to Agarwal.
The company did not disclose the amount of stake the two investors will be selling to Agarwal. However it said that they will continue to hold equity in the company.
Currently, Agarwal has a 9.43 percent stake in the company. While Lightspeed Ventures and Sequoia Capital have 10.88 percent and 10.24 percent stake, respectively. Softbank on the other hand, has over a 45 percent stake in Oyo.
The deal has been signed through RA Hospitlity Holdings and is supported by global institutional banks and his financial partners and is subject to regulatory and shareholders approvals.
The development comes at a time when Softbank is learnt to be looking at investing a mammoth amount of funding in the hospitality firm for increasing its shareholding in the company.
“As an entrepreneur and on behalf of the company’s management, I am thankful to have been given the opportunity to rededicate ourselves to the company’s mission of building the world’s most loved hospitality brand that is focused on bringing a better lifestyle for the common man,” said Agarwal.
This year, the company claims to have witnessed a 4.4x year-on-year growth in revenue in June 2019 against the year ago period with 1 million rooms under management across hotels and homes.
“We have confidence in Ritesh’s vision for Oyo and how the team has come together to build a truly global brand from India. It has been an exciting journey so far and we hope to achieve many more milestones together in the time to come,” said Munish Varma, managing partner, SoftBank Vision Fund.
Oyo last announced an investment from US-based home-renting company Airbnb in April. Before that, it raised over $1 billion from investors including SoftBank, Didi Chuxing and ride-hailing firm Grab, among others.
