New York: Indian corporations are poised to become large brand owners in the US, shifting American consumers' perception about India's soft power well beyond Bollywood and IT, founder and CEO of Oyo-parent firm PRISM Ritesh Agarwal said, stressing the importance of technology, as he underlined that "India's time is now".
Agarwal noted that India is the second biggest office for 'FAANG' - an acronym for five of the most prominent US technology companies: Facebook (Meta), Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google.
Agarwal highlighted that his company has "very aggressively" expanded its international footprint and now makes the most amount of sales globally in the United States. "We are also the single largest economy hotel brand owner here in the US, with the acquisition of Motel Six," he said.
In 2024, OYO completed its USD 525 million acquisition of G6 Hospitality, the parent company of the US hospitality brand Motel 6, the largest owned-and-operated hotel chain in North America.
"I feel we are going to very quickly move to Indian corporations becoming large brand owners in the US very quickly, which means for the first time you'll find Indian brands that American consumers would be using, and they would appreciate the soft power that our country will generate beyond Bollywood and beyond the software services. And that will happen because of the existence of technology," Agarwal said here.
"I think in the future you will start seeing large investments with consumer-driven businesses" in the US, much like what European and Southeast Asian brands create. "I think India's time is now."
The Consulate General of India in New York organised a fireside chat with Agarwal on Tuesday titled 'India's Startup Ecosystem, Hospitality and Tourism Opportunities', moderated by PRISM's Group President - Strategic Initiatives, Nitin Thakur.
When asked about which opportunity in the US excites him the most, Agarwal said "The one challenge that I find most exciting is housing in America, which is the US housing remains under stress, has been for a very long time.
"We are trying to change it with our extended stay effort... I almost think of it like an interplay between hotels and housing, which is somewhere in the middle. I think that's an opportunity I find very, very exciting in the US right now," he said.
The interaction came amid reports that PRISM has secured clearance from the markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), to raise Rs 6,650 crore through its initial public offering (IPO).
Oyo's parent entity, PRISM, had filed the preliminary IPO papers with Sebi in December 2025 through the confidential route.
Asked about the upcoming IPO of Elon Musk-led SpaceX, Agarwal recalled his meeting with Musk last year when he was part of a small group of founders invited by Musk to see one of SpaceX's launches, which had failed as the rocket crashed. Musk was unperturbed by that mishap and was trying to make jokes about it, Agarwal said.
"... That just told me about the ability to celebrate failure", and see it as a learning opportunity was fascinating, Agarwal said.
When asked to share his thoughts about Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Agarwal said he often calls the Indian leader the "startup Prime Minister" and lauded the efforts of the Modi government to propel the start-up ecosystem of the country.
"India has offered close to USD 2 billion of capital to new startups. Almost no other country has done this around the world, and these are only first-generation new startups that are getting created," he said.
Agarwal also recalled his first meeting with President Donald Trump and said that the American leader's "business friendliness is something most people would not challenge. I think that's been a big reason for the Indian-American relationship over the many years."
