ET BureauBy Madhav Chanchani & Snigdha Sengupta
MUMBAI: Gurgaon-based Oravel Stays, which aggregates budget stays under the brand OYO Rooms, has closed a fresh round of funding in which it is set to raise about Rs 30 crore from investors led by Sequoia Capital while some of the existing angel investors are expected to exit.
The overall deal including the payout to angel investors is pegged at Rs 30-40 crore, a person familiar with the matter said, adding that following this development Oravel Stays could get a valuation of about Rs 150 crore.
“The primary investment into the company has closed, with Sequoia Capital leading the round. That would be about $5 million. The secondary part of the round is currently under discussion. Some angels will exit. Others will stay on board,” one of the angel investors in the company said on condition of anonymity.
In an email response to queries from ET, a spokesperson of Sequoia Capital declined to comment on the development.
Angel investors in the company include Mumbai-based start-up accelerator VentureNursery, Anand Ladsariya, Ravi Kiran, Nitin Agarwal, Anirudh Damani and Sanjay Mehta, among others.
Founded in 2011 by 21-year old college dropout Ritesh Agarwal, Oravel Stays raised a reported Rs 4 crore in its first significant round of funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and DSG Consumer Partners. The round was not officially announced, but some of the company’s early angels exited at the time.
Agarwal could not be reached for comments.
The start-up was initially focused on online short-stay accommodation listings, on the lines of the popular US-based room sharing service AirBnB. The venture then caught the attention of VentureNursery, which angel funded the start-up after a three-month programme.
Earlier this year, the company pivoted its business model to a managed marketplace of branded and standardised budget accommodations under the brand OYO Rooms. Since then, it has roped in over 20 inns and guest houses in Gurgaon, Noida and Delhi.
The company is clocking gross bookings of over Rs 1 crore per month and will use the current round of funding to expand to another nine to 10 cities, a person privy to the plans said.
The deal highlights how top venture capital firms are backing a new set of younger entrepreneurs that are taking the plunge early with their business ideas.
Agarwal was last year chosen for Thiel Fellowship, which entailed a $100,000 grant by early Facebook investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. The fellowship is given to entrepreneurs below 20 years of age who skip college for two years to starting running their business.
MUMBAI: Gurgaon-based Oravel Stays, which aggregates budget stays under the brand OYO Rooms, has closed a fresh round of funding in which it is set to raise about Rs 30 crore from investors led by Sequoia Capital while some of the existing angel investors are expected to exit.
The overall deal including the payout to angel investors is pegged at Rs 30-40 crore, a person familiar with the matter said, adding that following this development Oravel Stays could get a valuation of about Rs 150 crore.
“The primary investment into the company has closed, with Sequoia Capital leading the round. That would be about $5 million. The secondary part of the round is currently under discussion. Some angels will exit. Others will stay on board,” one of the angel investors in the company said on condition of anonymity.
In an email response to queries from ET, a spokesperson of Sequoia Capital declined to comment on the development.
Angel investors in the company include Mumbai-based start-up accelerator VentureNursery, Anand Ladsariya, Ravi Kiran, Nitin Agarwal, Anirudh Damani and Sanjay Mehta, among others.
Founded in 2011 by 21-year old college dropout Ritesh Agarwal, Oravel Stays raised a reported Rs 4 crore in its first significant round of funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and DSG Consumer Partners. The round was not officially announced, but some of the company’s early angels exited at the time.
Agarwal could not be reached for comments.
The start-up was initially focused on online short-stay accommodation listings, on the lines of the popular US-based room sharing service AirBnB. The venture then caught the attention of VentureNursery, which angel funded the start-up after a three-month programme.
Earlier this year, the company pivoted its business model to a managed marketplace of branded and standardised budget accommodations under the brand OYO Rooms. Since then, it has roped in over 20 inns and guest houses in Gurgaon, Noida and Delhi.
The company is clocking gross bookings of over Rs 1 crore per month and will use the current round of funding to expand to another nine to 10 cities, a person privy to the plans said.
The deal highlights how top venture capital firms are backing a new set of younger entrepreneurs that are taking the plunge early with their business ideas.
Agarwal was last year chosen for Thiel Fellowship, which entailed a $100,000 grant by early Facebook investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. The fellowship is given to entrepreneurs below 20 years of age who skip college for two years to starting running their business.
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