Exclusive: OYO enters co-living space with ‘OYO Living’

Branded hotel-chain OYO, has gunned for a massive opportunity in co-living spaces. Previously, it had been exploring many complimentary verticals such as banquet halls and holiday stays.

The Softbank-backed company has kicked-off operations with two properties in Sector 57 and Sector 28 GCR, Gurugram.

Soon, it is slated to launch OYO Living across Delhi (NCR) and Bengaluru and then expand it to Hyderabad and Pune. The company is aggressively scouting for properties in these cities.

The new vertical of OYO offers fully-furnished rooms and includes facilities like housekeeping, fully equipped kitchens and WiFi amongst other home-services.

According to a company email sent to users, by the end of 2018, OYO Living will be in 5 cities with more than 10,000 beds. OYO would be taking large independent homes, row houses, apartments towers etc.

“We are not acquiring single homes in a society, but only looking at aggregate homes available under one large property/tower,” mentions the email.

One of the properties under OYO Living, offers (excluding food) a private room at Rs 18,000 per month, and twin sharing at Rs 10,000 per month.

With OYO Living, OYO will directly compete with NestAway, StayAbode, and Ziffy Homes amongst a slew of others.

However, Nestaway has the pole position when it comes to scale, growth, and funding. So far, it has raised nearly $100 million in total funding. Last December, it raised $51 million (about Rs 330 crore) from Goldman Sachs and-RNT, an alternative investment fund that partners RNT Associates (Ratan Tata) and the University of California.

Entry of OYO into the co-living space can also trigger consolidation and may cause blood-bath in the segment, given its financial strength. Since OYO has a deeper pocket under SoftBank’s support, NestAway is going to face intense competition for the very first time.

After raising $250 million from SoftBank and Hero Enterprise, OYO had pivoted from aggregation to a pure-play franchise model in December last year.

Presently, OYO claims to operate 8,500 hotels and 70,000 rooms in more than 230 cities in India. The company had recently started operations in Dubai and China. Entrackr had exclusively reported its launch in both countries.