OYO's Ritesh Agarwal says startup investments in early, mid-stages is accelerating

Ritesh Agarwal is founder and CEO of OYO.

Hospitality tech firm OYO’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ritesh Agarwal sees a spur in the funding scenario for Indian startups despite the drastic decline in investments last year.

“In the early and mid-stages, investments have started accelerating versus last year. I expect a much higher amount of investments in early and mid-stages. In the late stages, investment is actively growing. Also, startups have transformed themselves towards profitability. OYO is having its first maiden profitable year this year. And it is not just us. Lots of other companies in the last three years have transformed to maintain a balance between growth and profitability,” he told Moneycontrol.

Agarwal said that companies have utilised capital very well. “On the macro level, the Fed (US Federal Reserve) has given a more dovish stance. The Indian stock market is one of the best performing stock markets in the world demonstrating that more capital is looking to come to India.”

Startups have become mainstream

He said in the last few years, startups have become mainstream in terms of discussion. “Bharat has become a nation of innovations. Every person is thinking of new ideas and problems have become exciting as everyone wants to solve them. I went to my hometown in Rayagada. I was amazed to see people talking about startups. Some met me and pitched ideas.”

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Agarwal noted that developed nations like the US have had great entrepreneurs who played a big role in nation building. “Indian startups and founders will make India a developed nation. It all started with the Startup India program in 2016. It was a needle moving year. The largest companies in India in the next few decades will be today’s startups that will become established firms.”

He said that on the sets of Shark Tank India Season 3 they have seen that the quality of companies and founders has improved dramatically, delivering great value.

Shark Tank India experience

The OYO founder is the youngest shark on the reality show, as he became part of the new season to back new businesses and founders, something he always wished to do.

Shark Tank India is a business reality show where business ideas are pitched and the best ideas get backing from some of the judges on the show.

“The show has taken entrepreneurship to the living rooms of the family. It has become a family dinner time. While this was a reason to become a part of the show, the bigger reason was to help new businesses. When I had started OYO there was nothing like Shark Tank India. I had to figure out everything myself but there were entrepreneurs who were willing to back me then and that made a big difference. Sachin Bansal building Flipkart, Bhavish Aggarwal building OLA, Vijay Shekhar Sharma building Paytm, seeing them inspired me a lot and gave me the thought of building successful startups.”

Small town, big dreams

Agarwal added that he comes from a small town in Odisha and believes that small-town entrepreneurs have big dreams. “They don’t want to be the best in their town or India. They want to build global companies. I wanted to help founders and Shark Tank India was the platform for it. My mother is a big fan of the show. She watches every episode and debates which companies should have received funding. She told me once that she heard me talking about equity dilution a couple of years back and now she knows what it means. We watch the show together.”

Also read: Indian startup funding landscape: An analysis of 2023 and outlook for 2024

On his experience shooting for a reality show, Agarwal said that the experience was unique. “When founders walk in and after listening to the pitch, you have to make a decision then and there. And there are back-to-back pitches. It is a special experience because you meet a fantastic set of founders. Being in a vanity van itself was a unique thing.”

He said that even in between breaks the judges spent time discussing startups.

“There was a natural sense of camaraderie that was built. I used the time in between breaks to meet them (judges). For my community, I made interesting videos and have shared them on social media. I used to try and take my new electric bike which became a hit, and everyone wanted to get their hands on it,” he said.