As Oravel Stays Pvt Ltd, the operator of Oyo hotel aggregator platform, plans its public listing, its employees are set to make thousands of crores. The company is expected to create total wealth of nearly Rs 5,000 crore for its employees based on the post-initial public offering (IPO) valuation of $10 billion, according to an analysis done by VCCircle.

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According to the analysis, the top six officers in the company are going to get richer by Rs 1,491 crore through the vested options.

Its global Chief Operating Officer and Chief Product Officer, Abhinav Sinha, who holds most of the stock options worth Rs 1,100 crore, will make a windfall with his company going public. Sinha, an alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur and Harvard University, joined the company in 2014 after working at ITC Ltd and BCG.

Also read: OYO warns of delay in turning profitable; IPO-bound startup's key strengths & weaknesses

Oyo's crorepatis

Oravel Stays' Chief Financial Officer Abhishek Gupta, who joined the company in 2015 after working with General Electric International Inc and Philips India Ltd, holds 309 ESOPs worth more than Rs 130 crore. Maninder Gulati, the Chief Strategy Officer, holds stock options worth more than Rs 100 crore. The General Gounsel of Oyo, Rakesh Kumar Prusti, Chief Technology Officer Ankit Mathuria, Chief Human Resources Officer Dinesh Ramamurthi, Vice President, Legal, Company Secretary and Compliance Officer, Vimal Chalwa, are the other employees of the company who are going to become crorepatis, according to a report by Mint.

Also read: Mumbai hotel-owner calls for EoW audit of Oyo; FHRAI to also raise issues

Oyo Founder Ritesh Agarwal, who owns one-third of the company, is not eligible to hold ESOPs. He does not hold any executive or managerial role in the company. Agarwal owns 8.21 percent in his personal capacity and about a fourth of the company separately through RA Hospitality Holdings Cayman. Recently, Microsoft invested in Oyo in the pre-IPO round when the company was valued at around $9.6 billion.

Investments in Oyo

The company had earlier received over $73 million in investment from San Francisco-based Airbnb. SoftBank holds a 46.62 percent stake in it. Other backers of Oyo include Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Ventures and A1 Holdings. It was in September 2018 that Oyo turned into a unicorn, or a private startup valued at $1 billion. Oyo has 5,130 employees, of which around 4,100 have stock options. Over 70 percent of its staff is based in India.

Oyo will join a number of other tech startups whose employees amassed a lot of wealth after their companies were listed. Recently, after Freshworks was listed on the Nasdaq, over 500 of its employees became crorepatis. Similarly, the founders of PolicyBazaar, Yashish Dahiya and Alok Bansal, hold ESOPs worth Rs 3,500 crore, and CarTrade’s executives are sitting on ESOPs worth close to Rs 200 crore.

Also read: Oyo Rooms IPO: Key risks to watch out for

(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)