Ankit Gupta, India CEO at Oyo, the hospitality and travel tech startup, has quit the company ahead of a planned public listing, the company said in a statement. Along with Gupta, Oyo’s Europe head, Mandar Vaidya has also left the company.
Gupta had joined the unicorn in 2019 and was the India CEO only for about a year before quitting in March this year. Before heading India operations, Gupta was CEO of the Franchise and Frontier business at the Gurugram-based company. Similarly, Vaidya too had joined Oyo in 2019 and before he began leading Europe operations from April 2021, he was the CXO of South East Asia and Middle East.
“Ankit Gupta and Mandar Vaidya moved on from their roles six months ago (in March 2023). We are proud of their achievements at Oyo and are thankful for their leadership,” a spokesperson for Oyo said in a statement to Moneycontrol.
Prior to joining Oyo in 2019, both Gupta and Vaidya had worked with McKinsey, the management consulting firm.
“Both roles were already transitioned six months ago to Varun Jain, as COO India, and, Gautam Swaroop, as CEO OYO Vacation Homes, respectively,” the company added.
Gupta and Vaidya now join a other top executives who have exited Oyo this year. In June, the company’s CTO Ankit Mathuria had also quit. In February, Oyo had also rejigged its top deck and top executives were asked to take on more roles internally.
Abhinav Sinha, who was earlier the global COO and also led the product division, was appointed as the chief product and technology officer as Oyo had merged the two units. Anuj Tejpal, who was the global chief merchant officer, was asked to also lead the India merchant team.
Shreerang Godbole was asked to take on additional charge and lead the data science division, along with his role as the chief service officer. Similarly, Gautam Swaroop, CEO – International at Oyo, was reportedly handed over the responsibility of running Weddingz, the company’s wedding organising arm.
The developments come at a time when Oyo has refiled its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with 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, sharply lower than $10 billion that it once commanded but dragged down as tech stocks around the world continue to get hammered.
In May this year, Moody’s had projected that Oyo was likely to end the current financial year with an Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) of around $50 million-$55 million (or Rs 400-450 crore), on the back of a resurgence in travel.
While the rating agency had said that Oyo’s outlook remained stable, it cautioned that Oyo’s rating could be downgraded if it did not “significantly” reduce its cash burn over the coming 12-18 months. There could also be a downgrade if Oyo’s liquidity was insufficient to fund its operations and investments over the next 2-3 years, at least.