In what is seen as a rare move for a startup-turned-unicorn, Oyo founder Ritesh Agarwal is looking to buy back shares worth $1.5 billion from early investors Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners, reported The Economic Times, citing three people familiar with the matter.

The buyback would help Agarwal increase his stake to around 30 percent from the current 10 percent, said the report, adding this could likely rise to 32-33 percent, including the stakes held by the management and employees.

According to the sources mentioned in the report, Agarwal is already in talks with financial institutions and lenders in India, Japan and Europe to raise $2 billion in secured debt to finance the buyback.

When contacted by ET, there was no response from Lightspeed and Sequoia, while an Oyo spokesperson said, "As a company policy, we do not comment on industry speculation.”

A successful buyback will make Agarwal the second-largest stakeholder in Oyo after SoftBank Vision Fund, which owns almost 48 percent of the company, the report said.

While eye-raising, this will not be the first time that a Softbank-backed Indian startup founder has made such a move. Earlier, Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal and Snapdeal’s founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal had also taken such a step.

First Published:Jul 8, 2019 11:35 AM IST