OYO, India's fastest growing hotel chain, is set to shake up Britain's budget accommodation market with a high-tech franchising and marketing strategy to sign up 300 independent hotels by the end of 2019, its founder told Reuters on Wednesday.

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Marking its first expansion outside of Asia, the franchiser said it plans to invest 40 million pounds ($53 million) to launch in 10 UK cities over the next 18 months through a smartphone-based service aimed at both franchise owners and guests.

OYO is entering Britain's economy hotel segment, which is led by Whitbread's Premier Inn chain.

Other branded operators include private equity-backed Travelodge and Holiday Inn Express, a unit of Intercontinental Hotels Group.

Ritesh Agarwal, the company's 24-year-old founder, said in a phone interview that OYO aims to select hotels from among Britain's 35,000-40,000 independent operators, offering interior redesign and revenue management services to help them compete.

Since its founding in 2013, OYO has become South Asia's fastest growing hotel chain, with a network of 211,000 rooms in 349 cities.