Oyo Hotels & Homes, launched in 2013, last week
submitted paperwork for an initial public offering in India, seeking a
valuation of US$10 billion to $12 billion, according to Reuters.
Pre-pandemic, Oyo was one of the fastest-growing companies
in the hospitality space, but Covid-19 hit the company hard. Its losses for the
fiscal year ending March 2020 were 105.86 billion rupees ($1.4 billion), but
they lessened by March 2021 to 33.82 billion rupees ($455 million), according
to Reuters.
In June 2019, Oyo launched its US division with a commitment
to invest $300 million in the region. In subsequent interviews with BTN –
including one with former Oyo US head Kasra Moshkani in November 2020 – the company
assured its commitment to growing the market. However, Oyo began to lay off US
employees in 2020, and by February 2021, CEO Ritesh Agarwal told The Financial
Times that the company would focus on India, Southeast Asia and short-term
rentals in Europe. In a July 2021 Reuters interview, Agarwal said that
"expanding in China and the US is not a priority at the moment”.
Among the company's biggest financial backers is Japan's
SoftBank.