New Delhi, June 30 -- Japanese investment behemoth SoftBank will likely be sitting on modest gains on its billion-dollar bet on Oravel Stays Ltd, the Indian hospitality company behind the Oyo and Prism brands, but venture capital firms Peak XV Partners and Lightspeed are positioned for a big payday, a VCCircle analysis of the company's IPO filing shows.

Oravel Stays has filed its updated draft papers with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for an initial public offering to raise up to Rs 6,650 crore ($702.7 million) through a fresh issue of shares. There is no offer-for-sale component from existing shareholders and investors. The company may also undertake a pre-IPO placement of up to Rs 1,330 crore, which would reduce the size of the fresh issue by a corresponding amount.

The filing caps a protracted, multi-year effort to list on Indian bourses. Oravel first sought an IPO in October 2021 reportedly targeting a valuation of nearly $12 billion, or around Rs 90,000 crore based on foreign exchange rates prevailing at the time. SEBI returned those papers in early 2023, and a subsequent, scaled-down filing was withdrawn in May 2024 amid structural changes.

Oravel then filed a confidential draft prospectus in late December 2025, which SEBI cleared in early June.

The company has not finalized the IPO price band or its target valuation, but media reports have pointed to an expected range of $7 billion to $8 billion, or around Rs 66,000-76,000 crore.

On the grey market, Oravel's shares last quoted at Rs 25 apiece, according to UnlistedZone.com, a platform for trading in unlisted shares. At this price, Oravel will command a pre-IPO valuation of Rs 37,635 crore ($3.97 billion) and a post-IPO valuation of Rs 44,285 ($4.7 billion).

However, the company recorded some secondary transactions last year when its shares were traded at Rs 29 apiece. That would give it a pre-IPO valuation of Rs 43,656 crore ($4.6 billion) and a post-IPO valuation of Rs 50,306 ($5.3 billion), back-of-the-envelope calculations show.

In either case, Oravel would become the second most-valued hotels operator in India after listing. Taj Hotel owner Indian Hotels Company is currently No.1 with a market capitalisation of over Rs 100,000 crore. At No.2, is ITC Hotels Ltd with a market capitalization of a little over Rs 37,700 crore, stock-exchange data show.

SoftBank, Lightspeed and Peak XV

SoftBank is Oravel's largest shareholder with a 40.04% stake. It began investing in the company in 2015 and has invested an estimated Rs 10,326 crore over the years through primary capital infusion and secondary purchases.

Its stake would be worth between Rs 15,847 crore and Rs 18,383 crore, at share prices of Rs 25 and Rs 29 apiece, respectively. This would translate into a multiple on invested capital of 1.5x to 1.8x and an unrealised internal rate of return (IRR) of 8-10% in rupee terms, VCCircle estimates show. That's far below the minimum 20% IRR that private equity and venture capital investors target in local currency.

While SoftBank is staring at tepid returns, Lightspeed and Peak XV are sitting pretty after scoring multibagger returns on their investments when they sold a bulk of their stakes to Oravel founder Ritesh Agarwal in 2019.

Lightspeed was the first institutional investor in Oravel, joining its cap table in early 2014. Peak XV, then known as Sequoia Capital India, entered the cap table in September 2014. Both VCs invested in Oravel's Series A to D rounds, from 2014 to 2017. Lightspeed invested a total of Rs 189 crore while Peak XV put in Rs 163.6 crore.

In 2019, Lightspeed sold shares worth Rs 5,774.80 crore to Agarwal's RA Hospitality Holdings and Peak XV divested shares worth Rs 3,317.2 crore, according to the draft prospectus.

Lightspeed now owns a 1.74% stake and Peak XV holds 1.06%. This is worth around Rs 800 crore and Rs 485 crore, respectively, at Rs 29 per share. This means Lightspeed's combined haul-cash already banked plus paper gains still on the table-would be Rs 6,574 crore and Peak XV's total would be Rs 3,800 crore. This would translate to a multiple on invested capital of 35x for Lightspeed and 23x for Peak XV, VCCircle estimates show.

To be sure, the actual returns of SoftBank and the two VCs would depend on the price at which they eventually sell Oravel's shares.

Oravel's other minority investors include Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Berhad, which holds a 1.41% stake; Southeast Asian superapp Grab, with a 1.62% stake; and Airbnb with 1.22%.

Founder Ritesh Agarwal himself owns 6.59% while two of his investment entities hold a total of 23.93%.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.