Oyo Rooms, a booking platform for budget hotels and guesthouses in Southeast Asia, has received a $100 million investment round that was led by SoftBank Group, a Japanese conglomerate that owns Sprint.
Also participating in the round were three previous US investment firms: Greenoaks Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Lightspeed India. The previous round was $25 million.
Oyo Rooms, based in Gurgaon, was founded two years ago by Ritesh Agarwal, a 21-year-old. It has since become the largest homegrown player in the market.
Startups whose businesses somewhat overlap with its core services include Wudstay and Stayzilla (which has raised more than $15 million).
Oyo Rooms puts its brand on hotels to bestow a marketing halo that comes with a promise of consistent quality. For a hotel to be accepted it must offer certain amenities, such as air conditioning and free breakfast.
The company says it has branded dozens of hotels covering 13,000 rooms in 70 cities. It aims to scale quickly. Already as of today, it says that it has 1,200 employees.
Agarwal says he has copied Brian Chesky's, the founder of Airbnb's, early marketing trick of staying at his branded properties on most nights, showing that he's a customer as much as an entrepreneur.
His company's mobile app also takes a page from Uber's model by offering ancillary services beyond reservations of a core product.
EARLIER: Will the real Ritesh Agarwal please stand up?