Oyo’s Ritesh Agarwal is the world’s second youngest self-made billionaire
NEW DELHI : Oyo Hotels founder Ritesh Agarwal has been crowned as the world’s second youngest billionaire. At the age of 24, his wealth was estimated at $1.1 billion ( ₹7,800 crore) in the Hurun Global Rich List 2020. Agarwal comes second only after cosmetics queen Kylie Jenner who has also amassed $1.1 billion at the age of 22.
Started in 2013, SoftBank-backed Oyo Hotels has already become the largest hotel chain in India and its valuation has soared to $10 billion. As the startup expands to the US and Europe after becoming the second largest chain in China, Oyo has chalked out ambitious plans of becoming the world’s largest hotel chain in 2023.
Ritesh Agarwal, a college dropout, is also the richest self-made Indian aged under 40. Zerodha founders Nithin Kamath and Nikhil Kamath, both in their 30s, are also among India’s richest young self-made billionaires. They are followed by Flipkart co-founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal ($1 billion each) and Byjus’ Raveendran family ($1.4 billion).
The young and rich list has 90 billionaires aged 40 or under, up 5 from last year. Out of them, 54 billionaires are self-made while 36 inherited wealth. The list is dominated by China and USA who have 25 young billionaires each.
India has a total of 137 billionaires in 2020, up by 33 from last year. With a wealth of $67 billion, Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani is the richest man in India and the ninth richest in the world.
Mumbai has the largest number of billionaires (50) in India while Bengaluru has 17, Ahmedabad 12 and Hyderabad 7.
