Branded budget hotel rooms service OYO Rooms has raised $100 million in a funding round led by SoftBank group and participation from existing investors Greenoaks Capital, Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed India. OYO will use the latest round of funding to implement new customer experience initiatives, build technology products, and extend its network. A VCCircle report added that OYO will be expanding its network to 50,000 rooms and 100 cities in India by the ed of the year. Currently, the company is present in more than 70 cities with more than 12,000 available rooms. OYO Rooms operated as Oravel.com and pivoted its business from an Air BnB clone following operational issues. Founded in 2012, Oravel allowed users to search for short stay rooms and apartments in India. Users could list their serviced apartments, boutique properties and villas and travelers can book these properties from the site. Later the company shifted focusing on its budget hotel chain OYO Rooms. The company had temporarily scaled down operations after two senior executives on the tech side had left the company. In March 2015, the company raised $20 million in a funding round led by Greenoaks Capital and other existing investors. In March 2014, Oravel had raised funding from DSG Consumer Partners, apart from Lightspeed Venture Partners. It was rumoured that Lightspeed Ventures had invested Rs 4 crore in the company at that time. Oravel had raised its seed funding from angel investors which included Shravan Shroff, founder of Fame Cinemas, and Ravi Kiran, former CEO – South East & South Asia – Starcom MediaVest Group…
