Two senior Oyo executives have left the budget-hospitality startup, just months before the company plans to list.
Ankit Gupta, who joined the unicorn startup in 2019 and served as chief executive in India, and Mandar Vaidya, who led the startup’s European business, have left the company. In a statement, an Oyo spokesperson said the executives left six months ago.
Their departures come at a time when Oyo – backed by SoftBank, Lightspeed and Peak XV – has delayed its plans to list several times – due to ongoing market conditions – and is now set to go ahead with it later today year.
Oyo originally filed papers to go public in October 2021, when it sought to raise up to $1.6 billion from a listing worth around $12 billion. The plans have since been posted and the target raised has been lowered to around $600 million in a list now set for November.
The departure of the executives is the latest in a series of less favorable developments for Oyo, which was once valued at $10 billion. SoftBank, the largest investor in Oyo, last year marked the value of its holding in the startup, giving it a value of $ 2.7 billion.
Indian outlet The Arc first reported on the departures.
Oyo has raised $3.23 billion in equity (primary + secondary) and debt financing rounds over the years, according to insight platform Tracxn.
An Oyo spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday that Varun Jain, as COO of Oyo India, and Gautam Swaroop, as CEO of Oyo Vacation Homes, have taken over the roles vacated by Gupta and Vaidya.
