Ankit Gupta, India CEO of Oyo, the hotel and travel technology start-up, has left the company ahead of a planned IPO, the company said in a statement. In addition to Gupta, Oyo’s European boss, Mandar Vaidya has also left the company.
Gupta joined the Unicorn in 2019 and was CEO of India for just about a year before stepping down in March this year. Prior to managing operations in India, Gupta was CEO of the Gurugram-based company’s Franchise and Frontier businesses. Similarly, Vaidya joined Oyo in 2019 and was CXO for Southeast Asia and the Middle East before taking over the management of European operations from April 2021.
“Ankit Gupta and Mandar Vaidya quit their roles six months ago (March 2023). We are proud of their achievements at Oyo and grateful for their leadership,” an Oyo spokesman said in a statement to Moneycontrol.
Before joining Oyo in 2019, both Gupta and Vaidya had worked with management consultancy McKinsey.
“Both roles were transferred six months ago to Varun Jain as COO India and Gautam Swaroop as CEO of OYO Vacation Homes,” the company added.
Gupta and Vaidya now join other top executives who left Oyo this year. The company’s CTO, Ankit Mathuria, also resigned in June. In February, Oyo had also reshuffled its top management and top executives were asked to take on more roles internally.
Abhinav Sinha, who was previously global COO and also led the product division, was appointed chief product and technology officer when Oyo merged the two entities. Anuj Tejpal, the global Chief Merchant Officer, has been asked to lead the Indian trading team as well.
Shreerang Godbole was asked to take on additional responsibilities in addition to his role as Chief Service Officer, leading the Data Science department. Similarly, Gautam Swaroop, CEO – International at Oyo, has reportedly been given responsibility for running Weddingz, the company’s wedding organization arm.
The developments come as Oyo has resubmitted its draft Red Herring prospectus (DRHP) to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) under the recently introduced pre-filing route. The company, founded by Ritesh Agarwal, is reportedly looking to raise $1 billion at a valuation of $2.7 billion, significantly less than the $10 billion it once had but has pulled down since Technology stocks around the world continue to come under pressure.
In May of this year, Moody’s had forecast that Oyo would likely end the current fiscal year with earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of about $50-55 million (or 400-450 crore) given the backdrop of a travel revival.
While the rating agency had stated that Oyo’s outlook remained stable, it warned that Oyo’s rating could be downgraded if the company did not “significantly” reduce its cash burn over the next 12 to 18 months. Essentially, this meant that Oyo’s liquidity would not be sufficient to fund its operations and investments for at least the next two to three years.
