About
Ritesh Agarwal is the founder and group chief executive of PRISM, the company formerly called Oravel Stays that owns the OYO hotel brand. Born in Bissam Cuttack, Odisha, in 1993 and raised in Titilagarh, he moved to Delhi in 2011 and that year started Oravel Stays, a site for listing short-term stays. The venture went through the Venture Nursery accelerator in 2012, and in 2013 Agarwal won a Thiel Fellowship carrying a $100,000 grant. The business relaunched as OYO Rooms in May 2013, focusing on budget hotels. OYO raised about $1 billion by 2018 and expanded abroad, and in 2019 Agarwal bought $2 billion of shares to triple his stake. For FY24 the company reported its first annual profit after tax, ₹229 crore. In September 2025 the parent was rebranded PRISM, covering budget and premium hotels, vacation homes, co-working and event venues in more than 35 countries. He has also appeared as an investor on Shark Tank India.
PRISM is preparing to list. On 30 June 2026 it filed an updated draft prospectus for an IPO made up entirely of a ₹6,650 crore fresh issue, with neither Agarwal nor SoftBank, its largest shareholder, selling shares. The filing showed SoftBank with 40.04% and Agarwal with 6.59% directly plus 20.12% through RA Hospitality Holdings. Agarwal's recognitions include Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia (2016), the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award in the services category (2018) and a place on Bloomberg's 50 most influential list (2019).
Source: en.wikipedia.org