SoftBank's Masayoshi Son visits India, attends Oyo founder's wedding reception, meets top start-up CEOs

SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son made a whirlwind visit to India on Tuesday and attended the wedding reception of Oyo founder Ritesh Agarwal and also met top start-up founders and CEOs in New Delhi. 

Son met a set of top Indian start-up founders and CEOs, including Paytm's Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Flipkart's Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Lenskart's Peyush Bansal among others.

"Ultimate joy today, seeing Masa smiling, happy and enjoying his India trip. Everyone of us had tons of gratitude for his belief and support given to our Startups," tweeted Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

Son's attendance at Agarwal's wedding reception comes months after reports emerged of SoftBank having slashed the valuation of Oyo Hotels on its books by more than 20% to $2.7 billion. The hospitality major had reached a valuation of $10 billion in a 2019 funding round. 

Oyo, formally known as Oravel Stays Ltd., was asked by Sebi earlier this year to refile the draft IPO papers with 'applicable' updates. Oyo now operates in over 800 cities in 80 countries and is considered one of the fastest-growing hotel chains in the world.

SoftBank's arm SVF Doorbell (Cayman) recently divested 3.8 per cent of its stake in supply chain company Delhivery for Rs 954 crore through open market transactions. The company also has investments in Indian companies such as Paytm, PolicyBazaar, Delhivery, Swiggy, Meesho, OYO, FirstCry, OfBusiness and Unacademy, among others. In total, around $15 billion has been invested so far in Indian companies. 

Among others who were present at the reception were Bharti Airtel's Sunil Mittal and first VCs of OYO, Bejul Somaia and Dev Khare, from Lightspeed.

Agarwal and his wife Geet were also seen taking blessings from Son by touching his feet.

Son has been a mentor to 29-year-old Agarwal since 2015. An early investor in Oyo, Son provided a personal guarantee in 2019 to Agarwal's $2 billion loan from Japanese banks allowing Agarwal to increase his stake in Oyo to over a third.