SoftBank Asks Oyo to Get New Investors for Its Next Funding Round of $500-700M

The Masayoshi Son-led investment conglomerate SoftBank has reportedly asked OYO to get new investors, following which it will participate in a funding round of nearly $500-700 million. If the new funding comes in, it will likely catapult OYO to become 12th Unicron.

OYO was valued at $850 million post its last fundraise of $250 million Series D round led by SoftBank through its SoftBank Vision Fund in September 2017. Soon after that, it also received $10 million from China Lodging Group.

After entering into Dubai last month, Gurugram-headquartered company also kicked off its operations in Shenzhen, China & Jakarta, Indonesia this month, according to media reports. It has presence in Malaysia and Nepal as well.

After adopting pure pay franchise model three months back, the budget hotel aggregator recently made its comeback on OTAs platforms such as MakeMyTrip and Goibibo after two years of delisting.

Following the strategic deal, MakeMyTrip is also eyeing a stake in Oyo.

Since its inception in 2013, Oyo has raised a total funding of about $442 million from investors like Softbank, Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture and Hero Enterprise among others. At present, OYO claims to operate 8,500 hotels and 70,000 rooms in more than 230 cities in India.

Not only Oyo, another SoftBank funded ride-hailing Unicorn Ola also expanded its operations to 3 more cities in Australia including Brisbane, Gold Coast and Canberra. Now operating across 6 major metropolitan cities (Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Canberra), the company also plans to expand further in Australia in cities including Adelaide, Darwin and Hobart.