OYO founder Ritesh Agarwal has surely achieved a lot in a short span of time and now he has launched a VC-fund with focus on Indian startups. OYO has been in trouble for quite some time now. The cheap hotel room service planned it expansion at the wrong time.

While OYO shelved some of its expansion plans, the company also decided to cut the money it pays to its partner hotels. COVID-19 lockdowns and the decline in hotels sector will have a lasting impact on OYO’s revenue and ability to generate profit in years to come. OYO has support from SoftBank and Masayoshi Son considers Agarwal as reliable leader for OYO. But, OYO has failed to report profit and with COVID-19, their plans to turn profitable could be delayed further.

Aroa Ventures will focus on early stage ventures and looking at deal size from $1 million to 10 million. The plan is to investor in startups with half million to 1 million USD in annual revenue.

India has a lot of opportunities but many companies that fail to turn profitable during the initial years, fail to generate profit at all. And, investors in India stay away from such ventures that regularly bleed money. This is one major difference between companies setup in India and the Silicon Valley.

Aroa Ventures has been registered in 2019 in Singapore. The company has with Ritesh Agarwal and Thomas Hufnagel as shareholders. The official website of Aroa Ventures adds, “Beyond capital, our team of serial entrepreneurs and experienced professionals work alongside portfolio companies to accelerate their growth and to deliver better risk-adjusted returns.”