OYO founder Ritesh Agarwal floats early-stage VC firm Aroa Ventures

Aroa Ventures also has Gaurav Gulati, the former COO of Innov8 which was acquired by OYO.
Ritesh Agarwal
Ritesh Agarwal
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Hospitality company OYO Hotels and Homes founder Ritesh Agarwal has now floated a venture capital firm which will invest in early stage startups which work in the domains of consumer, technology and leisure infrastructure. Set up in Singapore, Agarwal has floated the firm — Aroa Ventures — with Gaurav Gulati, the former COO of Innov8. 

Innov8 was acquired by OYO in 2019, for an amount estimated to be around Rs 200 crore. 

Aroa Ventures is sponsored by RACo holding company, and according to the website, and said that they are looking to invest between $500,000 and $5 million. 

“We are operationally-oriented and seek to partner with entrepreneurs of high repute, building long-lasting businesses,” it states/

“Beyond capital, our team of serial entrepreneurs and experienced professionals work alongside portfolio companies to accelerate their growth and to deliver better risk-adjusted returns,” the website states.

Entrackr, who broke the news, said that filings in Singapore showed that the company was registered last year, in which Agarwal was one of two shareholders, and in November, he took complete control of RA Holdings. The second shareholder, according to the report, was the partner at the law firm which handled the registration, which was then completely transferred to Agarwal. 

RA Hospitality Holdings was the entity floated by Agarwal in 2019, which is domiciled in the Cayman Islands. It was through this that $2.2 billion financing round was undertaken which was used to buy back shares from Sequoia and Lightspeed Ventures, as well as put money into OYO. 

This firm makes Agarwal the latest in a list of startup founders with their own firms for their personal bets. Snapdeal co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansa set up Titan Capital, Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal is one of two people who set up Navi Technologies, and Freecharge co-founders Sandeep Tandon and Kunal Shah set up Whiteboard Capital. 

According to Inc42, OYO’s top executives including Agarwal put in angel investments into a limited liability partnership Raaga Partners LLP.

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