Masayoshi Son, Sunil Mittal attend Oyo founder Ritesh Agarwal's wedding reception in Delhi; see pics

Ritesh Agarwal, founder and CEO of hospitality chain OYO, on Tuesday hosted a wedding reception at a 5-star hotel in Delhi. The grand reception was attended by SoftBank's Masayoshi Son and Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal, among others. SoftBank, a Japanese multinational conglomerate, is the largest backer of OYO.

In the last few years, OYO has emerged as one of the most successful hospitality companies in not just India but also globally.

Last month, Bloomberg reported that Masayoshi Son will join Prime Minister Modi and Asia's richest man at the wedding of Ritesh Agarwal. Son, the report said, has been a mentor to the 29-year-old Agarwal since 2015.

An early investor in Oyo, Son provided a personal guarantee in 2019 to Agarwal's $2 billion loan from Japanese banks allowing Agarwal to increase his stake in Oyo to over a third, the report said.

Born to a Marwari family in the state of Odisha, Agarwal moved to Delhi in 2011 for college. He dropped out of college after two years and was eventually accepted into the Thiel Fellowship program. As one of the winners of the Fellowship program, Agarwal received a grant of $100,000 which was used to launch OYO in May 2013.

The entrepreneur recently revealed that the hospitality chain was now the biggest hospitality tech platform in Indonesia. He said that there were over 2,500 exclusive OYO hotels available across over 180 cities.       

"Milestone alert :) We are now the biggest hospitality tech platform in Indonesia with over 2,500 exclusive hotels available for bookings across 180+ cities! We have hosted over 13 million guests since 2018, recording 15x growth!,” he said in a LinkedIn post.

As for the Indian market, Oravel Stays, which owns OYO, stated during a town hall that it was focussing on reducing operational inefficiencies that will further push up profitability.

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