After recently starting its operations in Saudi Arabia, Indian Hospitality startup OYO is now eyeing on the Japanese hospitality industry. Today OYO started its joint venture with Yahoo with the name OYO Life in Japan. The company will be rendering its services in the house renting segment with focus on the young and growing population of Japan.
Hiro Katsuse, who has earlier headed the Handy and Booking.com will be the CEO of new venture- OYO Life.
“The joint venture between Yahoo Japan and OYO will combine Yahoo’s marketing and distribution capabilities with OYO’s ability to transform and manage rental housing properties with the help of technology,” the company said in a statement.
Home rental real estate industry is a big industry in Japan with a market size of 12 million Yen.
Earlier this week, Softbank backed startup kicked off its hospitality services in Saudi Arabia by signing pact with 50 hotel having more than 3,000 rooms across seven cities.
OYO founded in 2011 by Ritesh Agarwal is India’s leading hospitality startup with around 8700 properties and over 170,000 rooms. As of now OYO has a presence in 180 major cities. The startup has also started operations in other countries besides India, such as UAE, Malaysia, China, UK, Nepal and Indonesia. The company has raised around $2.3 billion in the recent time period and enjoys a funding by companies like Softbank, Lightspeed India, China lodging and Hero enterprises among others which makes OYO is the biggest startup in the Indian Hospitality industry.