Ritesh Agarwal (OYO Founder)

Some Lesser Known Facts About Ritesh Agarwal

• Ritesh was born into a business-class Marwari family in Cuttack, Odisha.

• He has 3 siblings and is the youngest among them.

• He later shifted to Titilagarh, Odisha, where his family ran a small grocery store.

• At the age of 8, he began learning coding.

• He developed the habit of reading at a very young age. He used to read the books of his elder brother’s curriculum.

• As a child he used to get Rs. 300 as pocket money.

• Ritesh used to sell SIM cards when he was just 13.

• After completing his schooling, he went to Kota in Rajasthan to prepare for the entrance exam of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). He attended tuitions at Bansal Classes there. He, however, was not able to clear the entrance.

• Though he had enrolled himself at the University of London’s International Programme provided by the Indian School of Business and Finance, he never really felt connected to the course and rather attended several entrepreneurship events.

• At the age of 16, the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) selected him to participate in the Asian Science Camp in which pre-college students from different parts of Asia discussed several scientific research factors aimed at the betterment of the society.

  

• Ritesh, at the age of 17, dropped out of college to pursue his dream of becoming an entrepreneur.

• In 2011, Ritesh published a book titled Indian Engineering Colleges: A Complete Encyclopedia Of Top 100 Engineering Colleges. The book went on to become one of the best sellers in India.

  

• Ritesh then established Worth Growth Partners; thus, becoming the youngest entrepreneur in India. He founded the company to help multinational companies increase their growth and business in India.

• He then started Oravel Travels, a website dedicated to assisting hotel businesses in managing reservations, payments, and invoices. This business module was inspired by a San Francisco-based company named Airbnb.

  

• In 2012, he was able to secure funding of $40,000 (approximately Rs. 30 lakhs) for Oravel Travels from VentureNursery, an angel-backed start-up accelerator.

• OYO Rooms was established in January 2013. It’s an Indian hotel brand that owns, operates and aggregates standardized hotel rooms. The firm operates in Malaysia as well as in Nepal.

  

• He got the idea to start the company after he experienced a bitter experience at a hotel, where there was no cleanliness and good-quality room service.

• As per sources, Oravel Travels did not do well in the Indian market as it did not meet the expectations of the users. This led to the company incurring heavy losses as a result of which Ritesh Agarwal was left with a very little amount of money.

• After making some changes in the functioning policy of Oravel Travels, Agarwal submitted the business model to the Thiel Fellowship seeking a grant to upscale his business.

• In 2013, he was the first Asian to receive the Thiel Fellowship, a two-year program initiated by PayPal founder Peter Thiel. The program offers training from famous Silicon Valley entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Agarwal received a $100,000 fellowship during that period.

  

• In May 2013, he renamed Oravel Travels to OYO (On Your Own) Rooms.

  

• He worked on Data Science through OYO and acquired Qlik Pass in 2016.

• In the same year, he was mentioned in Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30 – Asia – Consumer Technology and 30 Under 30 – Consumer Technology lists.

• In September 2018, OYO received a funding of $1 billion.

• To expand its foothold in the southern regions of India, OYO purchased Chennai-based Novascotia Boutique Homes for about $1 million (about Rs 6.71 crore) in the same year.

• He also holds the positions of director and designated partner in various companies such as Raaga Partners Llp, Redsprig Innovation Partners Llp, and Dayzero Holdings Private Limited.

• OYO entered the Indian wedding industry in 2018 with the acquisition of Weddingz, a Mumbai-based company.

  

• In February 2019, OYO filed a Registrar of Companies (RoC) for $100 million. The company also raised funding of $100 million from Didi Chuxing Technology Company, a Beijing-based vehicle-for-hire company.

• In April 2019, OYO initiated an OPEN Program, which was aimed at helping new businesses in the Hospitality sector.

• The company purchased Europe’s largest vacation rental company @Leisure Group for approximately €369 million in May 2019. The company also purchased Europe-based Direct Booker for USD 5.5 million, which had serviced over 20 lakh customers and listed more than 3,200 homes in Europe.

• To expand its presence in the American gambling industry, OYO, for $135 million, purchased a part of the renowned Hooters Casino Hotel in Las Vegas, in August of the same year. The casino was later renamed to Oyo Hotel & Casino. OYO reportedly spent $2 million on its renovation as well.

  

• In the same year, his company became the third-largest global brand in the hospitality sector.

• In 2019, OYO and Airbnb entered a strategic partnership under which Airbnb allowed the company to list its properties on Airbnb’s official website.

• To start dealing in providing co-working spaces in India, OYO acquired Innov8, a Gurugram-based coworking startup, in 2019 for Rs. 220 crores. The company was later renamed OYO Workspaces.

  

• In the same year, OYO signed a contract with Yahoo Japan as well as with a Japan-based SoftBank Group Corp.

• Ritesh signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Saudi government’s Ministry of Hajj And Umrah in 2019 to provide affordable accommodations to the pilgrims visiting Mecca Madina.

  

• In 2020, Ritesh’s net worth exceeded $1.1 billion following which he became the world’s second-youngest, self-made billionaire.

• He once claimed that he regretted not completing graduation.

• A governing body for the tourism sector named the Confederation of Hospitality, Technology and Tourism Industry (CHATT) was established by OYO in June 2021. It was established with the assistance of companies like Yatra, Airbnb, and EaseMyTrip.

• Geetansha Sood and Ritesh Agarwal dated each other for ten years before their marriage in 2023,

• In February 2023, he invited President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to his wedding ceremony.

• His father passed away on 10 March 2023 after falling from the 20th floor of a high-rise apartment in Gurugram, Haryana.

• Ritesh Agarwal appeared as a judge in the business reality television series Shark Tank India in 2023. The series aired on Sony Entertainment Television (SET) and SonyLIV.

  

• As of 2024, OYO Rooms is the largest hospitality management chain in the world with a valuation of approximately $12 billion.

• OYO has a presence in various countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Nepal, Brazil, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

  

• Ritesh Agarwal does not drink alcohol.

• In an episode of Shark Tank India, Agarwal claimed that he has never consumed coffee. He said this while offering an investment in a coffee company that had appeared on the show.

• Ritesh Agarwal is multi-lingual and can speak many languages including Odia, Marwari, English, and Hindi.

• He owns a private jet worth Rs. 20 million.

• He is an avid dog lover.