The amount of financing that OYO Hotels has received from Airbnb has not been disclosed yet

The Beijing News (Reporter Wang Qingbin) Recently, there have been rumors that Airbnb is interested in investing in OYO Hotels, with the investment amount ranging from 100 million to 200 million US dollars. On April 2nd, OYO Hotels confirmed to The Beijing News reporter that it had just completed its Series E financing round, with Airbnb as the investor. However, the amount of financing has not been disclosed yet.

OYO is an Indian economy hotel chain brand, established in 2013. It entered the Chinese market in 2017, precisely at a time when the call for transformation and upgrading of economy hotels in China was on the rise. Against this backdrop, the number of OYO Hotel franchisees has grown rapidly in the opposite direction. OYO Hotels told The Beijing News reporter that it has become the sixth largest hotel chain operator in the world and is currently operating independently in the Chinese market. As of February 28, 2019, it has entered 298 cities across the country, with over 7,400 hotels and a total of more than 340,000 guest rooms.

The financing capacity of OYO Hotels is equally astonishing. In September 2018, OYO Hotels announced that it had raised $1 billion in financing, of which $800 million was investment and $200 million was investment commitment, led by SoftBank (SBIA). International investment institutions such as Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia and Greenoaks Capital participated in the investment. This is the largest round of financing that OYO Hotels has received since its establishment and also the largest in the Chinese market in 2018. Before this, OYO Hotels had completed seven rounds of financing. Among them, in September 2017, it received a $10 million investment from Huazhu and signed a five-year cooperation memorandum.

Airbnb is a global shared accommodation booking platform. In recent years, it has been quite optimistic about the Chinese and Indian markets and plans to make significant investments in these regions. From this perspective, OYO hotels, which originated from India and are rapidly expanding in China, have become the best choice for Airbnb's investment.

Wang Qingbin, a reporter from The Beijing News, edited by Qu Tingyi and proofread by Li Lijun