Why A 21-Year-Old Is Building OYO As An Uber (And Not An Airbnb) For Hotels In India

Ritesh Agarwal’s online marketplace for affordable stays, OYO Rooms, received $100 million in funding from SoftBank earlier this week. Agarwal is 21, and demographically aligned to a youthful country full of young entrepreneurs. Using technology and standardization, he is building what is one of the few non-copycat startups in an India with many Uber and Amazon imitators. OYO Rooms currently offers 14,000 rooms in 80 cities. His closest branded hotel competitor is India’s iconic Taj Hotels, run by conglomerate Tata’s Indian Hotels, whose current inventory of about 9,000 rooms, albeit in the upper end of the hospitality segment, is to double soon.