Airbnb picks up a stake in its Indian rival Oyo Rooms

• Oyo has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Airbnb in a series E round.
  
• The strategic investment will see both Oyo and Airbnb collaborate on various projects.
  
• Oyo Rooms had also announced its home rental service in Japan on Monday.

US-based home renting startup AirBnB has reportedly picked up a stake in Oyo Rooms. In a series E funding whose details are undisclosed, AirBnB has invested in the Indian hospitality unicorn.

According to earlier reports, AirBnB had been looking at investing anywhere between $100 million-$200 million in the Indian startup.

“As the 6th largest hotel chain operator in the world, we at, OYO Hotels & Homes, are committed to offering our guests and travelers around the world, great quality living spaces. We are happy to have Airbnb as our partner in this vision,” said Maninder Gulati, Global Chief Strategy Officer at OYO Hotels & Homes.

Gulati further said that Airbnb’s strong global footprints and access to local communities will open up new opportunities for OYO Hotels & Homes to strengthen and grow while staying true to our core value proposition.

According to sources, the funding development from Airbnb comes as a strategic investment in Oyo. Both Oyo and Airbnb are looking at opportunities to collaborate on a range of projects, including making OYO accommodations available on the Airbnb platform.

“India has approximately 410 million millennials, that’s more than the entire population of the US. This group increasingly makes up for the dominant segment of consumers and is looking for new and authentic travel experiences. We are working towards achieving 1 billion Airbnb users in the next 10 years and India will play an important role in helping us achieve that goal,” Nathan Blecharczyk, co-founder of Airbnb had told Business Insider on March 13.

Oyo Rooms has been growing at a fast rate, expanding its business territories beyond India. Having successfully expanded in China and several South East Asian markets, on Monday, Oyo also announced that it’s expanding in Japan with Oyo Life – an apartment rental service.

An official statement from the company said that the company has already received over 11,000+ pre-registrations and has touched an occupancy of over 114% at the time of launch itself.

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