Smartpricing, an Italian startup that has created hotel and apartment revenue management software to help hosts increase their revenue through technologies leveraging machine learning models, announced the completion of a €13 million Series A investment round, comprising €11 million in equity and €2 million in bank credit lines.
This leap forward is led by Partech, a VC based in Paris. Simone Riva (Senior Principal) and Philippe Collombel (Co-Founding Partner) chose Italy for their debut investment from their new fund, Partech Venture, backed by CDP Venture through the International Fund of Funds program. The round also included Techshop’s Gianluca D’Agostino (lead investor of the 2022 seed round), Azimut Digitech Fund, supported by FNDX, and the founders of Bending Spoons.
With this new funding, Smartpricing aims to become an industry leader by offering innovative rate management solutions and more to hospitality businesses worldwide. The AI-powered technology is designed to streamline a range of daily operations and optimize pricing for thousands of hotels, B&Bs, resorts, and vacation rentals.
“We had a lineup of potential lead investors, but Partech stood out with their market expertise and the approach of Simone and the people involved in the process. They are the perfect partners to fuel our high aspirations and global expansion goals. Notably, this round, in a challenging investment climate, was one of our region’s largest, spotlighting a 100 percent Trentino company’s impressive achievements. We’re just at the beginning of a journey that will lead us to revolutionize how tens of thousands of facilities worldwide operate with innovative solutions currently unmatched in the market,” said Luca Rodella, CEO and co-founder.
Since its inception, Smartpricing has seen exponential growth, extending its services to 17 countries, with a focus on the DACH region and Italy. Targeting €100 million in annual revenue in the medium term, the company plans a significant expansion of its team and the launch of innovative products, further establishing itself in the 360-degree software and fintech vertical for the hospitality industry.
Smartpricing also earned accolades as one of Italy’s 10 most promising startups of 2023 by the Financial Times’ Sifted list, compiled by several Venture Capital firms and highlighting its growth and technological prowess, and as one of Italy’s top 10 startups by LinkedIn. This funding round, a beacon in the challenging startup investment landscape, underscores Smartpricing’s extraordinary trajectory. Over 3,000 hosts globally are already using Smartpricing, boosting their revenues by over 30 percent on average
“We are excited to collaborate with Luca, Eugenio, and Tommaso to create a global leader in hospitality industry software. Over the past 12 months, the team has shown exceptional execution skills, strategic clarity, and ambition on par with other success stories in our portfolio. We believe Italy, with its burgeoning hospitality market and fragmented software landscape, is an ideal starting point. Our funding aims to consolidate our position in the Italian and German-speaking markets and venture into new high-potential territories, as we’ve successfully done with other SMB software investments,” commented Simone Riva, Senior Principal at Partech.
“The journey started in spring 2022 with the Smartpricing founders continues, the goals become even more ambitious. After leading the 2022 Seed round, we’ve been part of the company’s rapid growth and have helped bring about this exciting new funding chapter. We’re eager to join forces with a European-level investor like Partech to further nurture Smartpricing’s SaaS evolution and expansion in Italy and beyond,” added Gianluca D’Agostino, Co-founder and Managing Partner of The Techshop.
Smartpricing, founded in 2020 in Arco, Trentino, by Luca Rodella, Eugenio Bancaro and Tommaso Centonze, uses a proprietary algorithm that processes various types of data, including market, saturation and price trends in the specific geographic area and the accommodation’s history, to calculate the optimal price to improve the performance of the hospitality business. The goal is to simultaneously maximize the facility’s occupancy rate and average price per room, based on the property’s own characteristics, target market, and external variables. To date, the company has managed more than 2 million reservations for more than 3,000 establishments, increasing their revenue by more than 30 percent on average. Recently, it also unveiled a novel QR code-based payment and extra services management system, already embraced by over 200 facilities.
The year 2024 will see further investment in technology for Smartpricing, to launch new products, enhance the algorithm and platform, and expand the global user base. The goal is to emerge as a global front-runner in revenue management for small and medium-sized accommodations, cementing its role in the 360-degree hospitality software and fintech sector.
