Oyo buys out Weddingz to expand its wedding vertical

Hotel brand Oyo is on expansion spree. While expanding its operations in overseas such as China, London in recent times, the SoftBank-backed company also acquired startups to prove its mettle besides hotel brand segment.

The latest acquisition is Weddingz, an online marketplace for wedding venues and vendors. The deal is said to be mix round of cash and stock.

Importantly, this acquisition has come after Oyo's shown interest in wedding, party or conference segment with launch of a separate wedding vertical 'Auto Party'.

Weddingz is the third buyout for Oyo in last six months. Earlier, it had acquired corporates focused executive furnished accommodation platform Novascotia Boutique Homes in an all-cash deal in March. After four months it bought another startup in internet-of-things space AblePlus.

Following the deal, Oyo will absorb the whole team(about 200 employees) of Weddingz.

According to Maninder Gulati, chief strategy officer, Oyo, the company is looking at supply—whether it’s hotels, homes or banquets. It will further use Weddingz in  technology and distribution.

Founded in 2015 by Sandeep Lodha, Weddingz is a tech enabled wedding planning platform that connect users with wedding planners and service providers.

Initially, it started its operations in Mumbai, and now has expanded to 10 cities, including Delhi, Bengaluru, and Goa.

The startup had earlier raised $1 million from Singularity Ventures in January, last year and picked up an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A funding from consumer-centric venture fund Sixth Sense Ventures in 2016.

In December 2015, it had raised $1 million in angel funding from Google India’s managing director Rajan Anandan, film-makers Zoya Akhtar, among others.

Meanwhile, Oyo is in talks with investors which may take the company's valuation around $2 billion.

The development was reported by ET.