OYO CEO joins Venture Catalysts to empower small-town startups

Mumbai, Aug 17 (IANS) Ritesh Agarwal, CEO of hospitality major OYO, has joined hands with the country's largest incubator Venture Catalysts (VCats) to promote entrepreneurship in small-town India.

Vcats is the world's seventh most active early-stage investor and integrated incubator and is known for developing and nurturing early-stage startups.

The Mumbai-based incubator has a presence in over 30 smaller towns.

"Ritesh's insights will prove tremendously valuable to entrepreneurs as we continue to execute our plan to build a robust infrastructure for startups across India," Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, founder of Venture Catalysts said in a statement on Monday.

VCats has given wings to startups such as Beardo, BharatPe, Fynd, Supr and Coutloot, among others in various sectors.

"Today, many former OYOpreneurs have started their new ventures and are doing really well for themselves. Now that I have established myself as an entrepreneur, I think it is time to give back to society and support entrepreneurs like them," said Agarwal.

As the coronavirus pandemic has impacted working patterns across businesses, hospitality major OYO Hotels & Homes last month said that it has permanently moved to a 'hybrid workplace model'.

In June, the hospitality major announced that "large majority" of its employees that were furloughs or sent on temporary leaves in the US would be laid off with stock options.