Ritesh Agarwal

About

“It takes a village to raise a company,” says OYO founder Ritesh Agarwal. Once all about hypergrowth, unrestrained expansion, and heady valuations, OYO now centres its strategy around premiumisation, global expansion, and building for India but scaling globally. Its premium brands—Townhouse, Sunday, and Belvilla—reflect this strategic shift. India accounts for only 30% of its revenue; the remaining comes from overseas properties. The company has reinvented itself in the past three years. In FY25, OYO posted profit after tax of ₹623 crore—a 172% rise from ₹229 crore in FY24. Its adjusted Ebitda stood at ₹1,132 crore, up 27% year-on-year. Growth accompanied by profitability gives the luxury of compounding, the founder says. “We no longer need external capital to scale.” He expects the company’s top-line revenue to grow by 25% annually over the next few years. OYO now explores new revenue streams—from F&B and MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions) to software services like OYO OS and AI-driven operations. “A quarter of our code is now written by AI. It’s not just tech for scale, but for efficiency,” the founder says. No doubt, the startup wunderkind is playing a more deliberate, disciplined game.