Indian budget hotel platform Oyo Rooms is making its first move beyond Asia.
It plans to expand to the UK with an investment of $53 million to launch in 10 UK cities.
The goal is to have a portfolio of about 5,000 UK hotel rooms by 2020, according to founder Ritesh Agarwal.
"By focusing on the customer and small-asset owners, we tend to out-compete some of our more traditional hotel chain rivals," Ararwal told Reuters.
Oyo has tapped London restaurant entrepreneur Jeremy Sanders to manage its UK business and will open the first two properties next month in Edgware and Ilford, near London.
The UK represents a ‘multi-billion dollar opportunity for Oyo," he said.
The Oyo business model offers redesign and branding, property management and marketing to help smaller independent hoteliers to compete.
Oyo now lists more than 200,000 guestrooms in 349 cities across Asia.
Founded five years ago, Oyo Rooms is now worth about $2 billion based on its latest funding round.
