If you’re looking for a way to invest in the hotel industry, you’ll be happy to learn that Inovia has recently raised a $60 million Series B round. Khosla Ventures and iNovia Capital led the round. Now that it’s been funded, the San Francisco-based company is planning to sell its software platform to hoteliers.
Life House
Life House is an all in one hotel management company that is also a vertically integrated hotel operations platform. The company offers accounting and financial reporting, along with revenue management, design, and branding. In fact, the company operates almost 50 hotels across North America.
Life House’s recent round of funding, which closed in November, brought the company a whopping $64.2 million in equity. As part of the deal, Kayak led the funding, along with Inovia Capital, Trinity Ventures, and Derive Ventures. This round was also preceded by a $51 million round from Tiger Global and JLL.
One of Life House’s first partners was Kayak, which has been in the travel search engine business for a while. The company has been working with Life House since its inception in Miami Beach. They noticed some flaws with the independent hotel industry and decided to remedy them. With this funding, Life House is set to reimagine hotels.
In the end, Life House is an all in one hotel management platform that makes operating a hotel easy. The company aims to grow from the small to medium sized hotels and expand into English speaking countries in Europe and Canada.
Khosla Ventures and iNovia Capital led the Series B round
Khosla Ventures and iNovia Capital have led a $60 million Series B round for Boosted, a Mountain View-based light electric vehicle company. The funding will allow the company to expand its product offerings, which include last-mile electric vehicles.
Boosted, which has 85 employees, intends to use the funds to expand into new personal transportation verticals. Its most popular products are electric skateboards, but the company also manufactures commuter vehicles, including the Boosted Electric Longboard. This latest funding brings the company’s total funding to $80 million.
As a reminder, the light electric vehicle sector saw a significant increase in funding dollars in 2016. The energy storage sector grew by 300%, while wireless charging was cited as a major game changer.
Inovia Capital, which raised $325 million for its fifth early stage fund in December, has also made significant investments in the Canadian tech landscape. The company has supported portfolio companies from seed to IPO, and is the largest early stage investor in Canada.
Inovia plans to sell its software platform to hoteliers
Inovia Hotels has a hotel portfolio of motels and chateaus in the Berkshires and Midwest. The company is looking to expand into Canada and Europe. They will use new capital to hire engineers and software developers to build out their sales organization.
Life House is a New York-based boutique hotel management company. They are also a tech company that develops software for hotels. They offer an all-in-one platform that includes management, revenue management and accounting. Initially they serve smaller hotels, but they plan to expand into medium-sized properties.
Life House was founded by Rami Zeidan, who had previously worked in various areas of the hotel industry. He saw a need for a solution to the problems of independent hotel owners. So he started a company that would provide hoteliers with a software platform that could help them with general operations, accounting and branding.
Inovia backed Life House’s Series C round of financing. Tiger Global, Derive Ventures and JLL all participated. The round closed in November. It consisted of $64.2 million CAD in equity and $12.8 million in debt.
