According to different news sources, Gurugram-based hotel company Oyo is in the advanced stages of acquiring an unknown amount of financing from IT giant Microsoft at a valuation of $9 billion.
Didi Chuxing, a Chinese ride-hailing business, Grab, a Southeast Asian ride-hailing company, and Airbnb, a US-based hospitality corporation, are already key investors in the company.
In 2019, Oyo was valued at over $10 billion, however, SoftBank, a significant investor in the Indian firm, had cut its valuation to $3 billion in previous quarters.
According to Techcrunch, the planned arrangement may also include Oyo switching to Microsoft’s cloud services.
OYO has been aiming to expand its range of hospitality-related technological solutions. CO-OYO, OYO OS, OYO YO!, OYO Tariff Manager, OYO Secure, OYO Wizard, and the consumer-facing OYO App are just a few of the products available.
When OYO announced its $660 million Term Loan B (TLB) fundraising from worldwide institutional investors earlier this month, it stated that the proceeds will be used to settle past debts, improve the financial statement, and other business reasons, including product technology investment.
OYO faced the pandemic’s effects and is hoping to reclaim market share. When the travel market has a correction, the value of firms in this industry is likely to rise.
International businesses appear to be insuring their chances beforehand to secure a stronghold. OYO now has over 100,000 hotel partners in more than 80 countries.
Microsoft has previously made investments in a number of prominent Indian online businesses, including Flipkart, which it acquired in 2017.