Meet RateBoard

Founded in 2015 in Innsbruck by Matthias Trenkwalder and Simon Falkensteiner, RateBoard is the leading revenue management software in Europe. The goal is to provide hotels with a simple tool to optimize their pricing strategy, to simplify their work processes and to significantly increase the revenues.

2015 and 2016: Start of RateBoard

RateBoard was officially founded in July 2015 in Innsbruck by Matthias and Simon. Having grown up in and with the South Tyrolean hotel industry, they knew what challenges the industry was facing in terms of pricing. The intention was to give a clearer view on the chaotic world of price decisions and therefore develop a software which is easy to use. 

After the development of the first prototype and workshops with hotels to check the demand and usability, Berthold joined RateBoard as the first full time employee and became the CTO and part of the founding team at the beginning of 2016. During this year, the team grew from 2 to 10 employees and transformed the prototype into a functioning software. An additional office in Vienna was opened, the contracts for the first 30 customers were signed and the first awards for innovation in the field were awarded.

2017 and 2018: Growth

Now that the groundwork was done, and the company was ready to grow. An important focus and special challenge was placed on the connection to key interfaces, which should enable them to onboard as many interested hotels as possible. At the same time, big venture funding rounds with Next Floor and AWS Gründerfond were closed, which accelerated the growth and opened in a broader market. In 2018 alone, the customer base was more than tripled and the first bigger hotel chains including many more industry leading hotels were added to the clientele.

2019 and 2020: The first million in annual recurring revenue and the Zucchetti Group

The customer circle grew rapidly, breaking a new booking and billing record nearly every month. In 2019 the first contract with Zucchetti was signed to accelerate growth in Italy. Among numerous other awards, RateBoard was recognized as one of the Top Startups in Austria. At the end of the year, RateBoard reached 1 million in annual recurring revenue.

At the beginning of 2020 Zucchetti took over the ownership of RateBoard and since then RateBoard is a part of the international Zucchetti Group, which is one of the largest software companies in Europe. 2020 was also the first year of Covid, that shut down the whole world and especially hit hard on the tourism sector. Even during these challenging conditions, the growth was managed and the increase of revenue was over 40% yoy.

2021 and 2022: International scaling and continued development of the product

Even though the tourism sector still suffers from the consequences of the Covid19 pandemic, RateBoard’s success as the leading Revenue Management System is unstoppable. RateBoard gains popularity in more and more countries, the exciting international scaling is in full progress as RateBoard is being represented internationally.

In addition to the economic growth, great value is placed on a stable team of 40 motivated people, with further expansion in all departments. The strengthened Development and Data Science Team ensures constant further development of the software in order to provide customers with the best possible product.

2023 and 2024: Professionalization and collaboration with Prof. Dr. Kai-Markus Müller

In times of economic uncertainty, for example due to rising inflation, revenue management is becoming increasingly important in the hotel industry. More and more hotels are relying on RateBoard's innovative and user-friendly software to efficiently manage and sustainably optimize their pricing strategies.
 
The years 2023 and 2024 will be marked by further development and professionalization at RateBoard: the AI-supported algorithm will be continuously improved, customer support will be further expanded and internal processes will be optimized in a targeted manner.

A special milestone is the arrival of Prof. Dr. Kai-Markus Müller as “Chief of Behavioral Strategy” at RateBoard. He is considered one of the leading experts in the field of neuroeconomic price research and has been working for many years on the question of how people perceive prices and how purchasing decisions can be controlled on a neuronal level. Findings from neuroeconomics and behavioral economics are thus made accessible in new ways - for example through regular keynotes, scientific contributions and practical impulses for the industry. This benefits not only customers, but also the entire revenue management environment in the hotel industry.

2025: RateBoard celebrates its 10th anniversary

After 10 years, RateBoard can look back on a successful company development and continuous growth. Over 1,400 hotels in numerous countries now rely on the revenue management software. With over 80 integration partners, RateBoard offers the right interface to industry-leading PMS and channel managers.
 
In 2020, RateBoard updated around 79,000 hotel rates per month, today it is well over 8 million updates. This strong technological development is also reflected economically: the company was able to increase its turnover fivefold during this period. RateBoard has thus established itself as a major player in the European hotel software market and plays a pioneering role in the German-speaking market.