25-12 months-old Ritesh Agarwal’s OYO has been developing leaps and boundaries and is reported to be South Asia’s biggest lodge chain with a presence in approximately ten international locations. Going past hospitality, the group has now moved into new territory — cloud kitchens. In February, this 12 months, Entrackr pronounced that OYO listed cloud kitchens on India’s largest food aggregators — Swiggy and Zomato.
What reportedly started 20 cloud kitchens in Bengaluru and Gurugram has grown, with its manufacturers, Adraq via OYO and O’Biryani through OYO, present in numerous places across more than one town. But how does access into a highly fragmented section with cut-throat opposition augur for the hospitality main?
While OYO has actively begun working in these cloud kitchens, the enterprise has saved Mum. “As the most important lodge chain in India, operating franchised and rented property, we do have an active play in the F&B enterprise, with a median of about 25% of our revenue coming through the kitchens we operate in a number of our accommodations. As a result of culinary design and good food, our experience is treasured. We have nothing further to announce in the meantime,” the organization advised TNM.
On checking on Swiggy and Zomato, TNM has discovered numerous Iraq listings by OYO and O’Biryani by OYO in Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, and Hyderabad.
While food is a pretty aggressive sector, OYO has succeeded in a couple of industries, in preference to many other players, and has the money and infrastructure required to compete for a chunk of the cloud kitchen pie—which has gamers along with Swiggy’s The Bowl Company, Faasos, and Freshmen, amongst others.
Diversification
Sanjay Jesrani, the Founder and CEO of Go North Ventures, says that cloud kitchens are a logical extension of OYO’s enterprise and that in the quarter’s budget, it’s miles an opening place in which they could earn sales.
“What OYO is doing looks like they’re acquiring cloud kitchens, wherein without setting up huge constant infrastructure, they can, in reality, build that gets access to. In my view, it is a great policy. It isn’t necessarily a non-middle diversification but an adjacent region,” he says.
While Murali Bukkapatnam, the Chairman of Volksy Technologies, has the same opinion with the feasibility element for OYO to diversify, he says that the meals area remains a tough nut to crack.
“People are looking to create an area of interest in cloud kitchens where they can carrier people of various genres and distinct necessities. Will Ritesh (Agarwal) has the capability and consciousness to serve a gap product to generate enough sales to count the number for his balance sheet? That I doubt,” he says.
Business sense
OYO has seen an exponential increase and has finished thirteen rounds of funding. SoftBank, on its own, has led four rounds of funding. Flush with the budget, OYO is constantly stepping into more recent markets. It is presently looking at elevating $1 billion in its next investment round and is eyeing a market valuation of $10 billion.
OYO’s current cloud kitchen brands are being piloted through Swiggy and Zomato. “With the amount of money OYO has, it could go with the flow of masses of brands and, tell Swiggy, it pushes out others. OYO will initially use Zomato and Swiggy’s distribution to create the logo and post that; they can likely say that ‘in case you don’t push out others, I will take my brands on my platform’,” says Madhukar Sinha, the founding companion at India Quotient.
