Oyo’s founder sets up Aroa Ventures to back early-to-growth stage startups

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Ritesh Agarwal Aroa Ventures OYO: Ritesh Agarwal, the founder of SoftBank ‘s global hotel brand Oyo, has floated a new company in Singapore – Aroa Ventures – to make its investment in early-stage startups. Aroa Ventures is funded by Raco Holding Company and Agarwal owns the investment firm’s 100 percent stake.

Aroa Ventures has been looking to place bets in the automotive, technology, and leisure infrastructure sectors around the growth-stage companies. It favors companies with proven unit economics and high scale potential according to its website.

“We are partial to businesses that have the ability to create disproportionate value through adjacencies. We invest between USD $500K and $5 million,” as per information provided by Aroa Ventures on its website. Beyond capital, the firm helps portfolio companies accelerate their growth and deliver better risk-adjusted returns. 

The company was registered last year in Singapore with Agarwal and Thomas Hufnagel as the two shareholders in the firm, according to the filings. Agarwal later took over full ownership of RA Holdings Pte in November last year and Hufnagel who is a partner in the law firm that handled the registration moved his assets to the former one.

Aroa Ventures is led by former Innov8 chief operating officer ( COO) Gaurav Gulati. It is worth noting that Oyo acquired Innov8 in 2019 for a cash deal of about Rs 200 crore. He was also one of the Purist co-founders that Cure. Fit gained.

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Agarwal hasn’t been in the news for making personal investments unlike founders of other large-scale firms.

Agarwal has become the third SoftBank-backed entrepreneur to own a personal investment fund, with the incorporation of Ritesh Agarwal Aroa Ventures OYO In addition to Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Snapdeal’s Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal have their investment firms that place bets on their behalf.

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