Life House, a hotel company from Rami Zeidan of Starwood and programmer Yury Yakubchyk, launched a collection of lifestyle hotels, with its first two properties located in Miami’s Little Havana and South Beach neighborhoods. As part of the launch, the company also unveiled its proprietary technology platform, which supports a direct-booking system, a mobile app and a social network for travelers.

Life House raised $70 million in funding to date between venture and real estate capital, with investment from Global Founders Capital, Rocket Internet, Comcast Ventures, Trinity Ventures, Henley Investments and others. As the first U.S.-based lifestyle hotel company to be backed by venture capital and real estate capital, Life House said in a release the company is "positioned to modernize an antiquated hospitality industry that has been plagued with silo’d technology and reset consumer expectations around what the hotel experience can be."