4 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Mar 12, 2026 07:29 AM IST
India’s billionaire club continues to expand, and the latest Hurun Global Rich List 2026 has brought several new names into the spotlight. Among the fresh entrants this year in the global rich list are Shah Rukh Khan, filmmaker Namit Malhotra, and Ritesh Agarwal, the founder of OYO who is also widely known to television audiences as one of the investors on Shark Tank India.
The Hurun list added 57 new Indian billionaires, taking the country’s total tally to 308. Agarwal has also been named among the Self-Made Billionaires Under 40, where eight Indians have featured. On the global ranking, Agarwal is placed 2816, while Shah Rukh Khan and Namit Malhotra are both ranked 3306. Ritesh is part of season 5 of Shark Tank India, being streamed at present.
India’s youngest billionaire
According to Hurun’s official website, Ritesh Agarwal, 32, has emerged as India’s youngest billionaire, with an estimated net worth of Rs 18,402 crore (US $2 billion). Agarwal founded OYO in 2013 at the age of 19, turning what began as a modest budget hotel aggregator into one of the world’s largest hospitality technology platforms. Today, OYO operates across hotels, homes and vacation rentals in markets spanning Asia, Europe and the United States.
The Hurun report notes that the average age of Indian billionaires is 67, making Agarwal significantly younger than most members of the country’s billionaire club.
From Bhubaneswar to building OYO
Originally from Odisha, Agarwal’s entrepreneurial journey began with his love for travelling. One of his early trips sparked the idea that would eventually become OYO.
In a previous interview with SCREEN ahead of Shark Tank season 5, he recalled how difficult it was to convince people to take him seriously as a teenage founder. “I was just 18, right out of high school, when I was starting. So, people did not take me seriously at first. They thought a young person was very interested in trying to make a positive difference, but they were not sure if I would be able to do it. Back in the day, when I wrote cold emails, nobody would respond or was not willing to invest. I finally got a big investor in 2015.”
He also remembered the moment when the business first began to show promise. “Before that, in June 2013, I started with one hotel in Gurgaon. It had 20 per cent occupancy before OYO came about, but in a few months, the occupancy grew to 80 to 90 per cent. That was the starting point. Today we serve more than 17,000 hotels and 1,50,000 homes, so it has grown. Over the years, I have learned that consistency matters. I did not give up, and slowly, more critics started becoming believers.”
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The early gamble that shaped his journey
Agarwal’s entrepreneurial ambitions also meant giving up a traditional college education. Recalling his first fundraising experience, he shared how investors even asked to meet his parents. “When I was raising my first funding, I was 17-years-old, and the investors said they wanted to meet my parents. They said, if they send you to college, then… they wanted my parents to commit that they won’t send me to college, warna unke paise doob jaaenge (else they would lose their money).”
He also remembered how the investors praised his potential to his father. “Aap nahi jaante aapka beta itna bright hai (You don’t know how bright your son is).”
Skipping college was not an easy decision. In 2023, Agarwal acknowledged that he still sometimes wonders about the experience he missed. “People often ask me if I missed attending college and receiving a formal education. My answer has always been a resounding YES. The college experience is unmatched – it prepares you for the ‘real-world’. But for me, the Thiel fellowship was that big adventure which led to the eventual genesis of OYO.”
