Samena invests in India hotel operator

Financial details have not been disclosed. According to a statement Samena will take a 35% stake in Imperativ, making the GP the largest external shareholder. Shirish Saraf and Chetan Gupta, Samena's founder and managing director respectively, will join Imperativ's board.

Bloom was launched in 2012 by Gobind Akoi with a single hotel in New Delhi and now operates eight hotels with a total of 400 rooms in New Delhi, Gurgaon, Bangalore and Goa. The company has another 20 hotels in its pipeline and plans to expand to 100 hotels with over 2,500 rooms in the next few years.

"We are delighted to partner with Gobind Akoi and his team at Bloom, a truly differentiated company that can bring transformational change to the industry. Bloom has proven its unique asset-light business model by achieving operational profitability across its current portfolio in a very short period of time," said Saraf.

Rather than building and owning its own hotels, Bloom partners with real estate developers to design and manage their properties under its own brand. The company positions itself as a provider of comfortable accommodation at a reasonable price, with limited decoration and smaller public spaces compared to traditional hotels that allow it to invest more in its rooms.

This business model is similar to that of FabHotels and Treebo, which operate 225 and 300 hotels respectively. Both have received private equity backing: FabHotels is supported by Goldman Sachs and Accel Partners, while Treebo's investors include Ward Ferry Management, SAIF Partners, Bertelsmann India Investments and Matrix Partners India.

Samena is a principal investment group focusing on Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. The firm currently manages about $1 billion across private equity, direct investments, and credit.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Consumer
• Expansion
• India
• Samena Capital