OYO on Tuesday said it was raising $1 billion more, making it the most valuable hospitality chain in the country ahead of Tata-owned Indian Hotels and Oberoi-controlled EIH.

The latest round of funding led by Japan’s Softbank, which is already invested in the start-up founded by Ritesh Agarwal, a 24-year old college dropout, values OYO at $5 billion, or around Rs 35,000 crore.

While the current market capitalisation of IHCL is Rs 14,913 crore, EIH, based on Tuesday’s closing price, is valued at Rs 8739 crore and Lemon Tree Hotels at Rs 5693 crore.

Of the $1 billion that OYO is raising in the latest round, the hospitality chain has already got $800 million and has a further commitment of $200 million.

The money will be used to grow OYO’s business in India and China, and expand into new international markets.

The Telegraph

The latest funding round led by SoftBank Investment Advisers (SBIA) through SoftBank Vision Fund, the world’s biggest private tech investor, saw participation from other existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia and Greenoaks Capital.

“In the last 12 months, we have increased our footprint to five countries — India, China, Malaysia, Nepal, and more recently in the UK.

“With this additional funding, we plan to rapidly scale our business in these countries, while continuing to invest further in technology and talent.” Agarwal said.

“We have already started expanding our presence to newer segments, with OYO Home, OYO Townhouse and more recently Palette Resorts by OYO. We will continue to explore newer businesses while remaining focused on both organic and inorganic growth,” he said.

OYO plans to invest $600 million of the new funds in China, where the hotel aggregator has expanded into 171 cities and 87,000 rooms since its launch in the country about 10 months ago.

The company will use the remaining funds to expand in India and enter new markets.