ZO was thus entitled to obligations under the 2015 agreement. In March this year, an arbitrator ruled that ZO had completed its end of the obligations and despite it being non-binding, OYO’s actions were in breach of contract. “total shares issued not exceeding 7% of the fully diluted shareholding”.įurthermore, all seven Zo co-founders were entitled to a payout of USD 1 million, and in return would exit the merged entity.īut in 2016, OYO terminated its end of the agreement.

“acquire the identified assets which would include intellectual property rights (trademarks and domain names), software, certain key employees and other assets”, The OYO deal, although non-binding, must have come as a lifesaver. To capture hotels in this incredibly competitive market, ZO offered hoteliers minimum guarantees irrespective of revenue – guarantees so high they burnt through its feeble resources. Zo scraped by a meagre 6 million, in a round led by the already disillusioned Tiger Global. If it could be called that.įrom its very first fundraising round in 2015, OYO raised USD 100 million worth SoftBank money at a valuation of USD 400 million. In 2015, Zo Rooms (or Zostel) was one of OYO’s greatest competitors for the budget hotels market. This month, it plans to file an IPO in Mumbai for Rs. Today, it is one of India’s most valuable unicorns and the sixth-largest hospitality chain in the world. OYO Rooms began as Oravel in 2012, founded by a 19-year-old Ritesh Agarwal back-packing across India.

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