NEW YORK — Life House, a tech-enabled hotel brand and management company, announced the launch of Life Hospitality, a management company focused on maximizing hotel profitability for independent hotels through tech-powered cost reductions and revenue enhancements without a renovation or rebranding.
The announcement comes a few months following the company closing a $30 million Series B financing round. The investment was led by leading travel-tech investors, Thayer Ventures, with Tiger Global, JLL Spark, and Ashton Kutcher & Guy Oseary’s Sound Ventures, among others. Several strategic investors also participated in the round, including David Hamamoto, the former chairman of Morgans Hotel Group, and Jim Ketai, the founder of Bedrock Detroit, owner of Detroit’s Shinola Hotel. The round also included follow-on investments from the company’s prior investors Global Founders Capital, Comcast Ventures & Trinity Ventures.
Founded by luxury boutique hotel veterans in 2017, Life House has taken over seven hotels to date and, to ensure quality control, will initially only be selecting only 30 more hotels to partner with this year.
“There are many independent hotel owners out there who have created great independent hotel concepts but haven’t sorted out the increasingly complicated business of operating them,” said Rami Zeidan, Life House founder and CEO. “Strong hotel revenue growth over the last several years has masked the underlying operational challenges that have become more apparent with COVID-19.”
“As hotel owners started reaching out to us for help, but without capital to renovate into a Life House, we saw an opportunity to offer the same great service we provide to our Life House-branded hotels to the broader independent hotel community,” added Bryan Dunn, head of growth for the company. “We already operate a number of unique independent hotels on behalf of existing partners, who have been impressed with our ability to increase NOI and guest satisfaction such that they’re actively seeking to acquire additional properties alongside our platform—despite today’s uncertain market conditions.”
Life Hospitality leverages a proprietary technology stack with fully automated and centralized functions like financial accounting and reporting, pricing and revenue management, and digital marketing (especially through meta-search channels), allowing for advanced operations and minimized costs without diluting guest experience. Life Hospitality’s tech-based infrastructure is able to take over existing hotels in as little as one week and train staff on its software in one day, decreasing transition costs and pre-opening costs for owners. Life Hospitality is offering no transition fees and no management fees until 2021.
The company’s current portfolio encompasses 13 projects ranging from a 17-room boutique inn to a 131-room lifestyle hotel, with various food and beverage outlets. The company will continue to expand its Life House brand while growing its portfolio of independent hotels in collaboration with owners across the country.
