OYO’s Ritesh Agarwal joins the long list of founders who have turned investors

• OYO founder Ritesh Agarwal has floated a new fund called Aroa Ventures.
• Aroa Ventures will bet on companies that have proven-unit economics with annual revenue of $1-10 million and a growth rate of 20% year-on-year.
• Agarwal joins the bandwagon of founder-turned-investor in the Indian startup ecosystem

OYO founder Ritesh Agarwal has floated a new fund called Aroa Ventures. The Singapore-based fund will bet on early growth-stage startups, and is backed by RACO Holding company, a new company floated by Agarwal; and he holds 100% of the shares, according to Entrackr.

The fund is headed by Gaurav Gulati, the former Chief Operating Officer of Innov8, which was acquired by OYO in 2019.

There has been no official announcement on the fund yet.

Here’s what Agarwal is looking for

According to the company website, Aroa Ventures is looking to make ‘value-add’ investments in companies that have proven-unit economics with annual revenue of $1-10 million and a growth rate of 20% year-on-year. The fund will focus on sectors like consumer, technology, and leisure infrastructure.

The ticket size ranges between $500,000 to $5 million.

The founders-turned-investors tribe

Agarwal is the latest entrant from the Indian startup ecosystem to join the growing list of founders-turned-investors. Agarwal’s peers like Vijay Shekhar Sharma of Paytm and Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal of Snapdeal have launched their funding firms. Sharma is also an active angel investor with over 20 investments.

Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal had both individually launched their own funds. After his exit from Flipkart, and before floating his own company Navi Technologies, Sachin had dabbled in the investment space and has placed bets in companies like Ola, Ather Energy. Meanwhile, Binny is known to have set up his VC fund called ‘021 Capital’ along with Sailesh Tulshan, his financial adviser.


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