SoftBank’s Sumer Juneja joins Oyo board as non-executive director

Hospitality major Oyo has officially appointed Sumer Juneja as a non-executive director. The development comes a month after he joined the firm’s board as additional director, representing SoftBank.

The board at Oyo has passed a resolution to appoint Juneja as a non-executive director, the firm’s regulatory filing sourced from the Registrar of Companies (RoC) shows.

Juneja is managing director of EMEA & India at SoftBank’s investment advisors. He sits on multiple companies’ boards on behalf of SoftBank including Lenskart, Swiggy, Eruditus and Unacademy.

Prior to SoftBank, Juneja was a partner at Norwest Venture and a member of Goldman Sachs Asia special situations group.

The IPO-bound company recently closed its $175 million Series G round led by Patient Capital — an entity run by Oyo’s Ritesh Agarwal in Singapore — at a post-money valuation of $2.4 billion.

Oyo’s valuation declined 70% from its peak valuation of $9.6 billion in August 2021, when the firm raised $5 million from Microsoft.

The hospitality firm made a turnaround in business by churning profit of Rs 230 crore with an operating revenue of Rs 5,389 crore in FY24. For background, the firm bore a loss of Rs 1,286 crore in FY23.

Recently, Oyo said that it will refile the IPO papers after concluding a large funding round. In May, it withdrew its draft papers (DRHP) for the second time in the wake of unfavorable conditions. 

For a better experience in the budget hotel segment, Oyo has been working to get more control on operations of its partners. As per sources, the Gurugram-based company is looking after the services such as laundry and room service. The company also got into luxury accommodation with the brand name ‘Sunday’ which currently operates in three cities —Jaipur, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad. Sunday Hotel is a joint venture between Oyo’ parent company and its largest backer SoftBank. Sunday Hotel plans to open 25 properties in India by the end of FY25.