OYO’s 2025 Reset: Profitability, Governance And Global Pivot On IPO Turf

As the year 2025 comes to a close, OYO looks closer to check into the bourses, with its board giving the go-ahead to raise INR 6,650 Cr from the public by early 2026. 

The budget hotel aggregator, which claims to be controlling over 30% of a highly fragmented market dominated by offline travel agencies and a few online players, sought to be seen through the PRISM, its new brand identity adopted this year.  

It was not merely rebranding for OYO, the company transformed itself to a large extent to reflect its global aspirations. The startup restructured its business model, recalibrated its brand architecture, renewed efforts on overseas expansion, reaffirmed its governance, and rebuilt a profit engine to hedge against volatile market conditions it has been facing for years.

For a company that once symbolised the hyper-growth era of Indian unicorns, this year marked a quieter but more strategically disciplined evolution. But, is PRISM ready to hit the bustling IPO turf? 

One can’t help being sceptical when a debt burden exceeding INR 7,000 Cr comes to the fore straight from its FY25 annual report. To stub out the doubts, the company has positioned itself as a multi-brand, tech-enabled global hospitality ecosystem, spanning across formats ranging from hostels and co-working spaces to resorts, boutique villas and mid-market hotels.

PRISM logged in a profit of INR 244.8 Cr in FY25, up 7% from INR 229.6 Cr posted in its first profitable year in FY24. With 12 straight quarters in the black, as its annual report claimed, a clearer revenue structure, and an increasingly mature operational footprint, PRISM appears closer than ever to going public – a move that has been deferred multiple times since 2021. 

Insiders indicated that the PRISM management is planning to file the draft IPO papers with the markets regulator by the end of 2025, contingent on delivering yet another year of operational consistency.

On the other hand, it is highly likely that a significant portion of the IPO proceeds will be spent on debt repayment. 

As OYO rebuilds its identity and investors re-evaluate it along the way to the IPO, it’s time to check out how the hotel aggregator evolved through the year.

A Year Of Review, Reset, And Recast

The rebranding of OYO to PRISM in 2025 was one of the most significant corporate resets in India’s tech ecosystem. Unlike earlier brand recast attempts, this was more than cosmetic. The shift reflects a strategic repositioning from a budget hotel aggregator brand to a portfolio-led umbrella brand, according to insiders.

Under PRISM, the company operates distinct verticals such as OYO, Motel6, Townhouse, Sunday, Palette, OYO Vacation Homes, and Innov8. The Ritesh Agarwal-led firm now runs verticals like three-star and four-star accommodations, premium and design-centric boutique hotels, resorts, vacation homes, and co-working homes. 

The new identity attempts to solve challenges that lingered from OYO’s hyper-scaling phase when it grappled with warring partners, heavy attrition, and inconsistent customer experience. 

With a more structured brand architecture positioning the company as a technology-first hospitality platform – and not merely for discounted rooms – is likely to be crucial in the public float. 

OYO, according to sources, harps on the narrative of being sustainably profitable and the fifth largest hospitality app in the world in terms of downloads to attract investors to the IPO while reportedly eyeing a $7-8 Bn valuation in its listing. 

PRISM targets reputable hospitality brands for acquisition in key geographies and plans to retain the brand names of these platforms or properties to position itself as a global brand, rather than remaining India’s good-old hotel aggregator brand OYO. 

“It is basically the global positioning, coupled with keeping the marque brand’s identity secure that led it to change its corporate identity, “ a source told Inc42, refusing to be identified talking about the company’s business strategy. 

Global Markets Lead In Topline Show

One of the most striking developments for PRISM in FY25 was the geographic shift in its revenue mix. Although India remains a key market, the company’s growth narrative is now firmly global.

There seems to be some solid logic behind this. A deeper look into the annual report reveals that India contributed 30% to its overall topline. Multiple sources in the company shared that the US had a similar contribution, followed by Europe at 10-15%, while Gulf nations and South-East Asia made up the rest. 

In the Indian markets, while OYO saw muted growth of 4-5% on-year increase in topline, it expanded its footprints aggressively in overseas markets through the year. 

One of its largest strategic acquisitions of last year that fuelled its profitable streak in 2025 was a $525 Mn deal with US budget hotels operator G6 Hospitality, which owns brands like Motel 6 and Studio 6 Brands. This deal, according to an earlier statement from the parent company Oravel Stays was expected to add INR 630 Cr EBITDA to PRIMS’s overall profitability in FY26 and $1.7 Bn to the gross booking value of the combined entity under the PRISM umbrella.

In February 2025, OYO announced plans to invest $10 Mn to grow the digital assets of G6 Hospitality, including its website and app, with targeted addition of over 150 hotels to the chain across the US. Mid-market consolidations also paid off in the US in 2025.

The sources said the company is aiming at a bottomline of INR 800-1,000 Cr for FY26 on the back of some of the strategic acquisitions even as OYO had to secure more debt and increase its financial liabilities for the overseas bets. 

Substantial success in markets abroad in 2025 comes in stark contrast with India’s dominance in the PRISM blueprint of early years. 

The year also saw Europe emerging as a profitability engine for PRISM, thanks to a spurt in demand for vacation rental accommodations, particularly in the UK, Denmark, Netherlands, Spain and Mediterranean markets, with superior average daily rate (ADR) and better partner retention.

“PRISM built upon its strength of consolidation through a series of earlier acquisitions like Bellvilla, DanCentre, DirectBroker and Checkmyguest, ranging from vacation rentals to premium segments and leveraging local brand recall,” one of the sources said, seeking anonymity since he was not authorised to speak on the company’s expansion plan. PRISM is not only consolidating its revenue position in these markets, but also challenging a global player like AirBnB, he pointed out. 

Boutique Pivot In Premium Push

Perhaps the most defining strategic change of 2025 was PRISM’s move towards boutique and curated inventory such as design-led villas, resort properties, premium rentals, and experience-first hotels.

This approach addressed major pain points that had been haunting OYO with quality inconsistency, poor user experience, and partner churn.

Premium marques such as Sunday, Palette and Townhouse now represent PRISM’s attempt at controlled expansion with a higher ADR, lower churn, and stronger repeat user cohorts. Industry analysts see this as an attempt to enter the experience travel category – one of the fastest-growing segments globally – rather than competing solely in the price-led mass market.

In September 2025, PRISM raised INR 50 Cr ($5.6 Mn) for premium hotels subsidiary Sunday PropTech. The round was led by a consortium of investors, including InCred and Analah Capital. PRISM will use the fund to help Sunday PropTech to launch 40 four-star and five-star hotels in FY26 across metros, non-metros, wildlife destinations, and pilgrimage centres.

A month later, PRISM said that it will acquire 12 more hotels in H2 of FY26, adding to its portfolio of premium and mid-premium hospitality assets, through a mix of debt raised and equity transferred from the existing investors like SoftBank, InCred and Annalah.

“The need for high-quality premium and mid-premium hotels, coupled with a growing interest in travel, has been increasing significantly, and we see compelling opportunities to deploy capital in this space,” Saurav Agarwal, board member of Sunday PropTech or OYO Assets, said in an earlier statement.

PRISM has in addition also serviced 1,300 hotel partners in India to upgrade their facilities to cater to sub-premium and premium segments. 

While budget hotels remain a solid revenue stream for PRISM in the form of OYO in India and G6 Hospitality in the US, the startup aims at higher ticket-size transactions of curated inventory to shore up its topline.

Recalibration In Run-Up To $740 Mn IPO

Beyond balance sheets and branding, 2025 also saw deep organisational recalibration at PRISM with much of it designed to signal transparency and accountability ahead of its potential public listing.

One of the most notable governance decisions emerged when concerns were raised regarding the earlier structure of the company’s bonus-linked equity programme. Initially designed to allow the shareholders to participate in the bonus share allocation through a time-bound and opt-in process for preference share allocation, the programme has now been simplified, without such conditions being imposed before the IPO. 

The plan drew scrutiny from investors and advisors over equity allocation. In response, PRISM revised the framework to ensure a more equitable and transparent structure, opening the participation to a broader pool of non-promoter employees and operational leadership.

Stakeholders familiar with the updated plan described it as a “corrective step” that aligns leadership incentives with long-term performance milestones rather than valuation-driven optics. 

Multiple analysts believe PRISM is structuring its business closer to publicly listed hospitality operators like Marriott, Accor, or Airbnb, rather than a pure-play online travel aggregator. The bet is that the public market will evaluate PRISM on predictable revenue streams, long-term contracts, and scalable technology – not just occupancy or discount strategy.

PRISM also rejigged its top deck in 2025 to strengthen the leadership for its overseas markets as well as consolidate India and Asia under a unified management.

As the hospitality firm inches closer to the long-awaited IPO, it flips a pivotal chapter, where narrative alone is not enough. While the narrative of profitability, governance, and macro fundamentals give it a solid foundation, the execution discipline will be the acid test for PRISM in the securities market. 

The multi-brand architecture remains complex. The integration of upgraded standards across thousands of properties will require time, capital and patience. And the company’s global strategy must show that diversification is a moat, and not merely a hedge.

Much of its inorganic expansion was built upon borrowed funds. The company has improved its balance sheet over the last couple of years, but the public market will review how it grows its topline and expands while reducing the liabilities which have so far weighed on its coffers. 

If PRISM succeeds delivering consistency across brand experience, partner economics, and quarterly performance, as it did through 2025, it will write a new turnaround story that could be one of the most significant public market case studies of an Indian tech startup’s rise to a global category leader.

[Edited By Kumar Chatterjee]