Oyo's Ritesh Agarwal, top execs to pool individual angel investments through Raaga Partners

NEW DELHI: Top executives at Oyo Hotels and Homes, including group CEO Ritesh Agarwal, are likely to pool their individual angel investments into an entity named Raaga Partners LLP. The move mirrors previous efforts by India’s top entrepreneurs — including Snapdeal’s Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal — to create separate vehicles for their personal investments in other startups.

Raaga Partners, set up on March 5, 2016, names Abhishek Gupta, chief financial officer at Oyo, and Agarwal as ‘designated partners’, according to a note prepared by business intelligence platform paper.vc.

Anuj Tejpal, Oyo’s business development head, Abhinav Sinha, chief operating officer, and Ayush Mathur, chief supply officer, are named as partners.


“This appears to be a pooled investment vehicle for founding team at Oyo to make collective bets on select startups, and at this point, does not appear to have any other connection to Oyo,” the note said.

Responding to queries from ET, Agarwal said Oyo was his primary focus. “I am focused on building Oyo and that is what keeps me completely busy… I have made just a couple of such angel investments in companies recommended by trusted leaders of industry.”

Agarwal Transferred Shuttl shares in November 2018
The five senior executives are part of the founding team at the Soft-Bank-backed hospitality chain, which commands a valuation of $10 billion, making it one of the most richly valued companies in the country’s startup ecosystem.

According to legal definition, the liability of the ‘partner’ is limited solely to the LLP agreement and acts or omission by the partner himself. The ‘designated partners’ are responsible for the liabilities prescribed by the LLP agreement as well as for all penalties imposed on ‘limited liability partners’ for contravention of any provisions applicable and to be complied with by the LLP.

Agarwal, also an investor in appbased office bus service provider Shuttl, has transferred his shares in the company to Raaga Partners. He transferred his holding of 155 shares to Raaga Partners in November 2018, according to paper.vc.

Agarwal and another senior Oyo executive, Maninder Gulati — who is the chief strategy officer — had joined the Shuttl promoter team after buying out Sachin Bhatia, an early investor in the company.

Indian entrepreneurs have emerged as active angel investors in the fast-growing startup ecosystem. Snapdeal’s Bahl and Bansal have set up Titan Capital, which has been described as a holding company for all their personal bets. Flipkart cofounders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal had created Sabin Advisors Pvt Ltd for the same purpose, while Sandeep Tandon and Kunal Shah had set up Whiteboard Capital to house their burgeoning portfolio of startup investments, following their exit from payments platform FreeCharge.