ACTIVE Venture Partners, a Pan European VC fund, has today announced that portfolio company ReviewPro has been sold to Shiji Information Technology Co. Ltd (Shiji Information) (Shenzhen Stock Exchange stock code: 002153).
ReviewPro provides online reputation management and guest feedback management Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) to hospitality companies worldwide. The company is the world leader in hospitality guest intelligence for independent hotel chains.
ACTIVE Venture Partners invested €3m in ReviewPro, understanding that more than 90% of travelers are highly influenced by online reviews and, in turn, hotels need direct bookings whilst increasing Average Revenue per Available Room. ACTIVE generated a solid IRR for its fund Amerigo Innvierte Spain Ventures FCR on the ReviewPro investment.
The company, which has 64 employees, has grown annual revenues by more than 40%, is profitable and has +30,000 hotel clients across all segments, in more than 150 countries. Initially, started as a funding process, this transaction generated strong interest amongst both financial and strategic investors.
ReviewPro chose to partner with Shiji because of a shared vision of the importance of Guest Intelligence data, the opportunity to play an important role in the Chinese Groups international growth strategy and the way that Shiji can help scale the company’s already strong Asian presence. Shiji, one of the largest hotel technology companies in the world, is primarily engaged in the development and sale of hotel information management system software, system integration and technical service.
Christopher Pommerening, founding partner of ACTIVE Venture Partners, said: “ReviewPro is a remarkable TourismTech start-up story made in Barcelona. We are proud of the team which was able to build a market-leading company with a global footprint, while maintaining a capital efficiency more than 5 times better than its US competitor. We are happy to have been selected by the entrepreneurs as the only VC investor.”
About Shiji
Founded in 1998, Shiji’s aim is to become a “big data” application service platform operator. Shiji has become the leading manufacturer of Chinese hotel information systems after three successful transformations. At the same time, Shiji is gradually expanding from hotel to catering and retail industries, becoming the major software supplier to both industries. Now, Shiji is responsible for approximately 60% to 70% of the market share in the high end sector of hotel and retail industries, and possesses a leading position in the catering industry. The estimated annual revenue of Shiji clients can be as high as RMB 5 trillion. Shiji has completed three successful transformations since its establishment. It is now experiencing the 4th transformation dedicating to be a “big data” driven consumer application service platform operator. Shiji has introduced consulting, IT solutions and data platform services. Meanwhile, Shiji is developing worldwide leading products and technologies aiming for the international market and speeding up its globalization progress. Currently Shiji has more than 30 subsidiaries located in major Chinese cities and overseas markets (Singapore and Munich) with about 3,000 employees.
About ReviewPro
ReviewPro is the leading provider of Guest Intelligence solutions to independent hotel brands worldwide. The company’s suite of cloud-based solutions includes Online Reputation Management (ORM) and Guest Satisfaction Surveys (GSS), which enable clients to obtain a deeper understanding of reputation performance as well as operational/service strengths and weaknesses. The company provides actionable insight to increase guest satisfaction, rankings on review sites/OTAs and revenue.
The company offers the industry-standard Global Review Index™ (GRI), an online reputation score, which is used by thousands of hotels worldwide as a benchmark for reputation management efforts, based on review data collected from 175 OTAs and review sites in more than 45 languages. More than 30,000 hotels worldwide leverage ReviewPro’s solutions to deliver better guest experiences. For more information about ReviewPro, please visit www.reviewpro.com.
Source info in English: ACTIVE Venture Partners - http://active-vp.com/reviewpro-acquired-chinese-multinational-shiji-35m/
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