What is common between Sachin Bansal, Binny Bansal, Kunal Bahl, Rohit Bansal and Vijay Shekhar Sharma. Apart from the fact that they are all highly successful entrepreneurs, they are equally prolific investors and have invested in dozens of startups through their personal investment vehicles. Now Oyo’s Ritesh Agarwal is the latest name to be added in this long list.
Agarwal has started his own personal investment company called Arora Ventures, which is registered and based in Singapore. This investment company is backed by RA Hospitality Holdings, a holding company completely owned by Agarwal. Based in Cayman Island, Agarwal had used this holding company to increase his stake in Oyo Rooms in 2019. By doing so, the 27 year old entrepreneur became one of the few entrepreneurs to have increased his stake in his own founding company.
Barely few months old, Arora Ventures is yet to make its first investment in the startup ecosystem. The information is inferred by the fact that company’s official website does not mention any details at all about its portfolio investments. Arora Ventures’ official Twitter page also hardly has any followers, it barely has two followers when we last checked out.
Entrackr reported that Agarwal formed Arora Ventures along with Thomas Hufnagel, who is reportedly a partner in the Singapore based law firm called Luther LLP.
Arora Ventures says in its official website that it will focus on growth-stage businesses in the consumer, technology, and leisure infrastructure sectors. Agarwal’s investment company further adds that it will consider few important metrics before making investment in any startup; these metrics include revenue that has to be in between $1Mn -10 Mn per annum, growth has to be 20% on YOY basis and ought to be a profitable venture in terms of unit economics.
Gaurav Gulati, ex-COO of co-working startup Innov8, will look after Arora Ventures’ operations. Incidentally, Oyo had acquired the Y- Combinator backed Innov8 in March last year for $220 Mn, which marked Gurugram based hospitality major’s entry in the co-working space. Gulati has also mentioned in his Twitter bio that he is now busy building Arora Ventures. However, Agarwal has not mentioned anything about his new investment venture on his Twitter account.