OYO Rooms (stylized as OYO), also known as OYO Hotels & Homes, is an Indian multinational hospitality chain of leased and franchised hotels, homes, and living spaces. Founded in 2013 by Ritesh Agarwal, OYO initially consisted mainly of budget hotels. The startup expanded globally with thousands of hotels, vacation homes, and millions of rooms across more than 80 nations including India, Malaysia, UAE, Nepal, China, Brazil, Mexico, UK, Philippines, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Vietnam, the United States and more.
The company’s investors include SoftBank Group, Didi Chuxing, Greenoaks Capital, Sequoia India, Lightspeed India, Hero Enterprise, Airbnb, and China Lodging Group.
In 2012, Ritesh Agarwal launched Oravel Stays to enable listing and booking of budget accommodations; he renamed the firm OYO in 2013.
OYO partners with hotels to offer similar guest experiences across cities. Shortly after launching Oravel Stays, Ritesh Agarwal received a grant of $100,000 as a part of the Thiel Fellowship from Peter Thiel. OYO currently has over 17,000 employees globally, of which approximately 8000 are in India and South Asia. OYO Hotels & Homes maybe a full-fledged hotel chain that leases and franchises assets. the corporate invests in Capex hire GMs to oversee operations and customer experience also generating around 1,000,000 job opportunities in India and South Asia alone. OYO has also founded 26 training institutes for hospitality enthusiasts across India.
In April 2021, it had been claimed by several news reports and social media posts that OYO had filed for bankruptcy, but CEO Ritesh Agarwal clarified it to be untrue. However, he admitted that the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) initiated an insolvency resolution process on OYO Hotels on the idea of a hotelier’s petition over a monetary dispute with the corporate.
THE FOUNDER’S STORY
The teenage boy – Ritesh Agarwal is that the young Founder & CEO of OYO Rooms – the fastest-growing branded network of hotels offline & online. a university dropout, who once wanted to take a seat for an engineering exam, Ritesh today heads among the foremost valuable start-up by any individual who never studied beyond school. The journey of our hero began rather early than normal!
Ritesh was born to a business class family in Bissam Cuttack in Orissa and attended the Sacred Heart School in Rayagada, Orissa. During the growing up days in Rayagada, Odisha, it had been all about fun and learning for him but his ways were rather unconventional from those of other kids. His fun elements included screwing around with the pc and trying hard to seek out opportunities to form mistakes in order that he could learn new stuff. And doing that he gained a keen interest in software!
This started with the thought of it, moved on to understand about it then the hunger just went on increasing. To quench his thirst, he borrowed his elder brother’s books for programming. a number of the essential languages like Basic and Pascal were taught within the school itself and therefore the rest he managed to find out from Google. He even sold sim cards to survive, afraid his family would end his entrepreneurial dreams and summon him back home to Odisha if they knew of his struggles.
In Kota(Rajasthan), where he was ostensibly preparing for his IIT entrance exams, Ritesh says he couldn’t wait every weekend to slide bent Delhi and meet those doing their own thing. This 19-year-old had traveled for months staying at budget hotels, attended customer calls a day, and immersed himself in every possible experience to find out about budget hotel customers and their expectations. That was the type of on-the-ground learning that helped him pivot Oravel to Oyo.
Eduindex News 