r/stockbusinesstech

I have started tracking OYO's IPO journey recently and honestly, most people are still reacting to the old OYO story.

The version most people remember:

• SoftBank-fueled hypergrowth
• Huge losses
• Layoffs
• Two failed IPO attempts
• Valuation collapse
• Governance concerns

That story was real. But the company filing again in 2026 is a very different company from the one that tried listing in 2021.

Not financial advice, just analysis. Curious what others here think.

Quick context

• Third confidential DRHP filed: January 2026
• IPO size: ₹6,650 crore
• Target valuation: $7–8 billion
• Structure: all fresh issue, no reported OFS
• FY24: first annual profit (₹229 crore)
• Motel 6 acquisition completed: December 2024

The biggest difference vs earlier filings

This IPO is no longer primarily about investor exits.

The 2023 filing was OFS-heavy, most of the money raised would've gone to existing shareholders, not the company. Current reporting suggests the 2026 filing is entirely fresh issue. Capital goes into OYO itself.

That changes the IPO psychology materially. Compare the three attempts side by side:

Year	Valuation	Structure
2021	$9–10 billion	₹8,430 crore; lapsed
2023	$2.7 billion	₹4,286 crore; mostly OFS; lapsed
2026	$7–8 billion (target)	₹6,650 crore; all fresh issue

SoftBank is reportedly not participating in an OFS either. Whether that signals confidence in future upside or just better timing is debatable but it's a cleaner signal than a distressed seller trying to exit at any price.

The Motel 6 acquisition changed the story more than people realize

In December 2024, OYO acquired Motel 6 and Studio 6 from Blackstone for $525 million reportedly adding around 1,500 US properties and $1.7 billion in gross annual revenue.

This wasn't just a growth acquisition. It fundamentally changed the scale and classification of the company.

Before this, you could still broadly frame OYO as a travel-tech / franchise business.

Now it sits somewhere between:

• Hotel operator
• Franchise network
• Branded budget hotel chain
• Hospitality platform

Public markets assign very different multiples to each. That's part of why the valuation debate is so wide - both bulls and bears have room to argue.

Reported Q1 FY26 Gross Booking Value crossed ₹7,200 crore after Motel 6 consolidation, while reported net revenue was closer to ₹2,000 crore. The scale clearly moved - the bigger question is whether margins scale with it.

The profitability story is finally real

This is probably the single biggest change vs the earlier attempts.

Period	Revenue	Profit / Loss
FY22	₹4,905 crore	Loss: ₹2,074 crore
FY23	₹5,464 crore	Loss: ₹1,286 crore
FY24	₹5,388 crore	Profit: ₹229 crore

The important part isn't just that FY24 was profitable. It's how they got there - exiting weak international markets, renegotiating minimum guarantee contracts, cutting aggressive expansion, and prioritizing margins over optics.

The company stopped behaving like a startup chasing valuation and started behaving more like a business preparing for market scrutiny. That's a meaningful shift.

What's still not clean

Motel 6 integration is unproven. Revenue has moved. Margins haven't been fully tested. OYO's earlier international bets - Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East mostly ended in retreat. Running 1,500 physical US properties is a fundamentally different operational problem. If integration works, it justifies the $7–8B valuation. If it doesn't, it complicates everything.

One profitable year doesn't make a cycle. FY24 profit came in a decent travel environment. Hospitality is cyclical. The business hasn't been stress-tested at this scale through a real downcycle yet.

Three filings plus the CCPS episode is a long memory. In 2024, OYO proposed a CCPS bonus share structure that would have given insiders a higher ratio than regular shareholders. It was withdrawn under pressure in November 2025 and replaced with a universal 1:1. Resolved but it happened reactively, not proactively. Fund managers don't evaluate these things in isolation.

The founder leverage structure still hangs over the story. Ritesh Agarwal's $2 billion financing from 2019 doesn't disappear at IPO — it gets resolved through it. That doesn't make the structure automatically bad, but large investors will scrutinize the incentive alignment carefully when IPO timing directly affects leverage resolution.

What the market is actually underwriting at $7–8 billion

At this valuation, public-market investors are effectively betting that:

• Motel 6 integration works and adds to margins, not just revenue
• Profitability scales further through a full travel cycle
• Governance stabilizes and the third filing holds up to scrutiny
• OYO earns a valuation framework closer to a scaled hospitality business than a startup turnaround story

That's a lot for the market to underwrite simultaneously. The bullish and cautious readings are both legitimate. Public markets will decide whether the price holds.

The real IPO story

The first phase of OYO was about proving it could grow fast. That phase ended badly.

The current phase is about proving the business can become durable.

And that's probably the more interesting question now — not whether OYO can scale, but whether it can sustain.

Three things I'm curious what you guys think :

• Does Motel 6 actually justify the valuation reset from $2.7B to $7–8B?
• Does the all-fresh-issue structure materially improve IPO quality in your view?
• How much weight would you place on the governance history at this point?