India’s leading hospitality company OYO has reportedly raised funding worth USD 100 million from China’s ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing to close its ongoing USD 1 billion investment round. As per trusted sources, many companies including Japan’s SoftBank and Grab, a Singapore-based ride-hailing company have already invested USD 900 million as part of the USD 1 billion investment round.
Trusted reports claim that OYO raised USD 800 million in September 2018, from SoftBank and other investment firms including Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Greenoaks Capital. Post this accumulation, the company raised USD 100 million more from Gram to equal the overall amount of the round to USD 900 million.
According to sources familiar with the development, OYO, run by Oravel Stays Pvt. Ltd has been expanding immensely with its services now available in 500 cities across eight countries namely India, Nepal, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, UAE and UK. As a part of its hospitality chain, OYO presently runs more than 13,000 franchises or leased hotels and more than 6,000 homes. In India, the firm holds presence in over 180 cities with over 8,700 properties.
A report from The Economic Times claims that the relationship between Didi and OYO goes back to the year 2017 when the latter had leveraged Didi to declare its entry into China. Reliable sources claim that Didi is certain to join forces with OYO as it expands its reach into newer regions and the two are likely to strengthen their alliance as they both extend the scope of their business operations worldwide.
Agarwal, Group CEO & founder, OYO, has apparently been quoted stating that a major amount of the accumulated capital will be spent in expanding OYO’s fast-growing business across India and China.
There have been speculations that OYO may soon make its foray into the United States as well.
