Branded budget hotel rooms marketplace OYO Rooms has secured Rs 150 crore* or $20 million in a funding round led by Greenoaks Capital and other existing investors. The Gurgaon-based startup has expanded aggressively in the past six months, growing from 30 hotels to 200 and from one city to 10. By the end of this year, OYO plans to list 1,000 hotels, the report added.
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 May, 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 and angels Anand Ladsariya, managing director of Everest Flavours, Amit Patni, co-founder and chairman of Nirvana Venture Advisors and Bharat Banka, CEO of Aditya Birla Private Equity invested in the firm.
Recently, OYO Rooms was in the news for infringing on competitor Stayzilla’s trademarks on Google Adwords and companies took to Twitter to settle the issue.
*Update: An earlier version of the story had said that OYO Rooms had raised Rs 125 crore, based on a report on The Economic Times. OYO Rooms issued a statement clarifying that it had raised Rs 150 crore.
