OYO, an India-based travel startup backed by Airbnb and SoftBank, has acquired Danamica, a European data science company. TechCrunch reported that OYO paid approximately $10 million in the deal.
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The acquisition, announced on Monday, will help the travel company further refine its pricing, manage inventory, and manage revenue, according to a statement provided by OYO to Crunchbase News. The roll out will start with Europe, which adds to OYO’s promise to invest €300 million in the vacation homes business, “with a special focus on strengthening the relationship with homeowners and enabling them with the resources,” according to the aforementioned statement.
Started in 2013, OYO offers hotel rooms for rental. It optimizes budget hotel rooms and leases them out to individuals and offers fresh linens, wifi and tech support. In India’s fragmented hotel industry, OYO’s model is apparently in demand as the company has raised $1.7 billion in known venture capital funding and acquired seven companies to-date, according to its Crunchbase profile.
“Data sciences across Pricing, AI, and Imaging Sciences have been a cornerstone of OYO’s proprietary revenue enhancement technology. It is also a huge missing piece in the way traditional vacation rentals industry is run,” said Maninder Gulati, the global head of OYO Vacation and Urban Homes and chief strategy officer of OYO Hotels & Home, in the statement.
It’s notable that $10 million isn’t much for a company that has raised billions in the past. In fact, as I reported back in June, OYO raised so much money at that point that it is distorting India’s venture market, accounting for 92 percent of the past year’s total funding in India’s hospitality startups.
In the past, OYO’s CEO Ritesh Agarwal has credited his company’s proprietary technology for its competitive edge amid other travel giants in the world. But as it expands (the company currently hosts guests around the world in over 23,000 franchised and leased hotels in 800 cities in 19 countries across the world, according to its website), the extra help might be what it needs to keep up.
Illustration: Li-Anne Dias.
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