Life House, which just launched in Miami, wants to be a brand and a platform A new lodging concept launching in Miami today seeks to fuse numerous startup and tech industry tropes in order to build a better hotel brand and travel experience.
Life House believes vertical integration is the path to offering a boutique hotel experience at a discount price. Founded by Rami Zeidan, a former Sydell Group, Starwood, and TPG executive, and technology entrepreneur and Chief Technology Officer Yury Yakubchyk, and backed by $70 million in funding, the startup aims to have 20 properties in development across the country by the end of 2019. Life House wants to design and operate properties that offer a ?holistic solution to modern travel,? according to Zeidan. It won?t, however, own them. The Life House platform?akin to what a tech founder might describe as a ?software-as-a-service? concept?means property owners turn their buildings over to Life House, which then renovates, reopens, and reintroduces a new ?locally rooted lifestyle hotel? to the market. By bringing everything in house, with a single company handling operations and digital marketing, and avoiding online travel agencies (OTAs) such as Expedia, which take a cut of every booking, Life House believes it can offer ?a 4.5-star hotel experience at a fraction of the price.?

The living room at the Little Havana location.

It would be easy to point out that Silicon Valley?s answer to the hotel, Airbnb, ...