OYO’s Ritesh Agarwal launches Aroa Ventures to invest in startups

Aroa Ventures is the third venture registered by Ritesh Agarwal.

Founder of SoftBank-backed global hotel brand OYO, Ritesh Agarwal has set up a new investment entity Aroa Ventures in Singapore that will focus on early-stage businesses in the leisure infrastructure, consumer, and technology sectors.

OYO’s founder and CEO Ritesh Agarwal controls 100% stake in Aroa Ventures. The Singapore-based investment entity is being sponsored by RACo holding company.

Aroa Ventures was registered last year with Agarwal and Thomas Hufnagel (partner at the law firm) as the two shareholders in the investment firm.

RACo Holding Company is another investment company by Ritesh that controls Aroa Ventures completely.

Read Inspiring Success Story of OYO Rooms Ritesh Agarwal

Later in November last year, Ritesh Agarwal took over complete ownership of RA Holdings Pte, and Hufnagel who handled the registration transferred his holdings to the former.

With the incorporation of Aroa Ventures, Ritesh Agarwal has become the third SoftBank-backed entrepreneur to own a personal investment vehicle.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of mobile payments company Paytm, Snapdeal cofounders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal have their investment firms that place bet on their behalf.

While Rohit Bansal and Kunal Bahl launched Titan Capital that made about four dozen bets, Vijay Shekhar Sharma and his wife jointly floated two firms: VSS Holdings and VSS Investco to invest in early-stage startups.

Titan Capital’s portfolio includes professional network platform for women Leap.Club, female hygiene brand Sanfe, online recruitment platform JobSquare, female wellness startup Azah, homegrown bicycle brand Frog’s parent company AlphaVector, and online gaming startup Rein Games, among others.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma has been a prolific angel investor for the past few years. Aroa Ventures is looking to invest anywhere between $500,000 and $5 million.

Previously, Ritesh Agarwal had registered RA Hospitality Holdings (Cayman) that used to buy stake in Oyo from its early backers –Lightspeed Ventures and Sequoia Capital.

Freecharge cofounders Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon have also set up Whiteboard Capital.

It’s portfolio includes  online lending startup Ziploan, O2O fashion discovery platform Fashalot, hardware deeptech startup Atomberg Technologies, microcontent platform GIFSKEY, and celebrity engagement platform Wysh and among others.