Oyo India and Europe heads depart months before a potential IPO

Heads of Indian hospitality unicorn Oyo’s India and Europe business have left the company. According to an official statement, Ankit Gupta and Mandar Vaidya, who led India and Europe business respectively, departed nearly six months ago. This comes at a time when Oyo is looking at an imminent public market debut, that too at a time when startup IPOs aren’t really going the way one would have expected.

Both Gupta — who joined in 2019 and Vaidya had been long-serving executives at Oyo.

Amid some of key Oyo investors include Lightspeed, Softbank and Peak XV (Formerly Sequoia India). The company has had IPO plans for some years now, with multiple delays owing to market conditions. While the company had initially planned for a massive $1.2Bn IPO, valuing it at $12Bn, it has since significantly lowered that ask to almost half — $600Mn.

On a positive, the company did report cashflow profitability as recently as July this year, stating a potential public market debut in November this year.

An Oyo spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday that Varun Jain, as COO of Oyo India, and Gautam Swaroop, as CEO of Oyo Vacation Homes, have took over the roles left by Gupta and Vaidya.