OYO, on Monday, announced the acquisition of Danamica, a Danish data science company. The company wants to provide the best prices to customers and real estate owners by implementing Danamica’s machine learning-enabled pricing and revenue management across all of its services. Though the company didn’t disclose the acquisition amount, sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that the OYO spent $10 million for the acquisition.
Maninder Gulati, Global head, OYO Vacation and Urban Homes, and chief strategy officer, OYO Hotels & Homes, said in a statement, “We are delighted to announce our acquisition of Danamica, a Europe based, machine learning and business intelligence company specialized in dynamic pricing, that will help us be more accurate with pricing, leading to higher efficiencies and yield for our real estate owners and value for money for our millions of global guests, both everyday travellers and city dwellers, that choose an OYO Vacation Homes as their abode.”
Danamica is a Copenhagen-based firm founded by Mads Westberg and Rune Larsen which specializes in dynamic pricing through its machine learning technologies. This means that Danamica’s technologies provide optimal pricing for hotel rooms or similar rental services based upon changes in supply and demand.
Gulati said that data sciences across pricing, AI, and imaging sciences which is a huge missing piece in the way traditional vacation rentals industry is run. “With the implementation of machine learning-enabled pricing and revenue management, customers will be able to book a vacation home at the best price,” he added.
OYO which started as Oravel Stays has expanded into a hospitality firm which operates in 500 cities in 80 countries including India, China, Malaysia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, United States, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Japan
The company recently extended in the US after it bought the real estate company Highgate for $135 million along with the American Hooters Casino Hotel. In August, it acquired Amsterdam-based vacation rental business @Leisure Group for $415 million which it rebranded to OYO Vacation Homes. OYO is backed by investors such as Airbnb, DiDi, Sequoia Capital India, Grab and Softbank among others and its current valuation is $10 billion.
“Like OYO, we recognize the untapped potential in the vacation rental industry that can be fulfilled with a data-driven approach,” said Mads Westberg and Rune Larsen, Founders, Danamica. “We have found the right home for us in OYO and are excited about the prospect of using our expertise in pricing and machine learning to further help OYO’s continued growth and success.”
