AUGUST 20219ON EASING OF TRAVEL CURBS OYO SEES RECOVERY IN INDIAThe chief executive of India's Oyo Hotels and Homes said that the SoftBank-backed hospitality startup's busi-ness was likely to return to levels seen before the second wave, but he did not provide a timeline for its po-tential IPO."In India, if all goes well, in a couple of weeks our numbers will be back to pre-wave two and then growing from there," says, Indian En-trepreneur, Founder and CEO Ritesh Agarwal.During the global health crisis, the hotel aggregator, in which Soft-Bank has a 46 percent stake and is one of its biggest bets, has faced months of layoffs, cost cuts, and losses.However, as travel restrictions are eased and vaccinations are in-creased, travel demand in India is slowly recovering, with local tourism attractions seeing increased traffic."Staycations are in vogue and the trend of 'work from anywhere' is not a short-term one," Agarwal said.He stated that Oyo, which ag-gregates bookings for India's budget hotels and allows guests to book ho-tels through its mobile app, would consider a potential IPO but did not provide a timeline.Global technology platform helps small hotel & home owners with ease of operations and revenue growth, multiple distribution channels for increased online visibility, discover program that increases daily new guests up to 40% and Property man-agement with user friendly solution"We are looking at upcoming IPOs very closely, I'm sure our board will weigh in on our business pro-gress and general listings of technol-ogy companies."This year, India has seen several listings, fueled by foreign funds and interest from small-time investors.Zomato, a food delivery startup, filed for an IPO in late April, and One97 Communications Ltd, the parent company of Paytm, is ex-pected to file a draught prospectus as early as July 12. Features like addition of new languages and making real-time pledge margin possible is just a beginning.
< Page 8 | Page 10 >