OYO Rooms aims at 50k-inventory mark by year-end

The start-up currently has a room count of 20,000 across 2,000 properties in 102 cities nationally

OYO Rooms, a Gurgaon-based hotel rooms aggregation start-up, is looking at having an inventory of 50,000 rooms across 5,000 properties in 150 cities by 2015-end, according to Chief Growth Officer Kavikrut..

Founded in 2012 as Oravel by Ritesh Agarwal, the country's first graduate of the Thiel Fellowship, a programme started by Paypal founder Peter Thiel, OYO Rooms currently has a room count of 20,000 across 2,000 properties in 102 cities nationally.

Speaking to Business Standard, Kavikrut said the company had been witnessing huge traction on its OYO Rooms mobile app, which was launched in April this year. While the Android app had so far seen 500,000 downloads, the iOS version got around 100,000 downloads.

"Our idea is to become an 'app-first' company. We are expecting to close August with 400,000 transactions and touch 700,000 transactions in September, of which 50 per cent would be via the mobile apps. And, we expect this trend to continue," he said.

Backed by leading investors, including the Softbank Group, Greenoaks Capital, Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed India, OYO Rooms had so far raised approximately $125 million in funding, which it plans to mobilise to undertake expansion in Hyderabad and other cities in India.

OYO Rooms started operations in Hyderabad in February this year and already offers over 1,162 rooms in 134 hotels. It is targeting to expand its network to 5,000 rooms with over 500 partner properties by 2015.

Stating that OYO Rooms considers each city that it operates in as a separate business unit, Kavikrut said its first unit Gurgaon would turn profitable next month, with its top-eight cities including New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Pune following the suit over the next six to eight months.