OYO, the Indian hotel chain backed by SoftBank's Vision Fund, has just raised a new round of financing from Microsoft.
The 2 companies will work alongside each other to co-develop new products and technologies for the travel and hotel sector.
Key Highlights
- The amount of money raised from Microsoft is undisclosed, and is reportedly part of an agreement to co-develop new travel + hospitality products and technologies.
- One of such technologies is said to be a “smart room” for guests, which features self-performed check-ins, smart-locks, KYC services, IoT integration, and more.
- As part of the investment deal, OYO will also begin adopting Microsoft's cloud service, Azure, as well as Microsoft 365 suite and GitHub Enterprise for technology development.
Why It Matters
- Microsoft's investment in comes just before OYO goes public, which is scheduled to take place later this month.
- In July, OYO raised $660 million in loans to pay off past debts and weather the pandemic, which affected the company badly due to travel-bans.
- OYO presently has over 100,000 partners globally who use the company's solutions to manage their hotel businesses.
