2021 has already shaped up to be golden year for India’s top startups. While literally dozens of new unicorns took shape, some of India’s 1st-gen unicorns are looking to set for public market debuts. Zomato is the most spectacular example, having registered a spectacular, history creating listing earlier this year. And it seems now Oyo, despite several pandemic-induced business downturns, is in line for an IPO.
If reports are to be believed, the hospitality upstart will be filing its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) next week and is planning to raise between $1-1.2 billion in its initial public offering (IPO), according to a report by TechCrunch. Oyo’s plan to list on the stock exchanges in the world’s second-largest internet market has been in the news for quite some time, and filing a DRHP would make it all official.
Some of the other firms that are set to enter the public markets include Berkshire Hathaway Inc-backed Paytm and private equity firm TPG-backed Nykaa, Mobikwik, as well as Uber-rival, SoftBank-backed Ola.
CarTrade and Zomato have already completed their IPOs, while PolicyBazaar and Nykaa are slated to list their shares in the first half of next month. The others have filed their draft prospectuses.
According to the report, the IPO of the seven-year-old OYO will consist of a fresh issue of shares and an offer for sale (OFS) from existing shareholders. Oyo, which is also backed by SoftBank, has appointed Kotak Mahindra Capital, JP Morgan, and Citigroup to manage the public issue.
The company had earlier increased its authorized share capital to ₹901 crores and expanded its paid-up share capital through a stock split and bonus issue, as well as allotted 3,999 bonus shares for each share held. The bonus allotment was made to 15 equity shareholders, including founder Ritesh Agarwal, Japan’s SoftBank, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Microsoft Corp, Oravel Employee Welfare Trust, and Sequoia Capital.
Founded by Agarwal, Oyo has a presence in 35 countries, with India, Europe, and Southeast Asia being its key markets. Oyo Rooms provides quality hotel room stays for visitors and helps bring affordable and trusted accommodation with its full-stack technology, helping visitors determine the best price for a room and with discoverability and integrations with third-party hotel booking services. Last valued at $9.6 billion, the start-up says that it has clocked recovery in Europe and is recuperating from the devastation created by the pandemic, which wrecked the hospitality and tourism industries worldwide for over a year.
