Revenue Analytics raises $11 million to predict product pricing with AI
Imagine you’re a retailer with a diverse clientele. To whom should you extend a promotion when a product isn’t flying off the shelves, and how steep should the discount be? Atlanta, Georgia-based Revenue Analytics would argue that machine learning algorithms hold the answer to those questions. That shouldn’t be surprising — AI has been the company’s bread and butter for over 15 years.
Today, in anticipation of substantial growth this year, Revenue Analytics revealed that it has raised $11 million in a series A round led by Noro-Moseley Partners, with participation from Blue Lagoon Capital. The fresh funds will be used to hire at least 50 people across the company’s sales, marketing, and product development teams in the next 12-18 months, said CEO Dax Dross.
“There is truly no company that has had more success in helping companies apply predictive analytics to commercial decisions than ours,” said Cross. “But we’re even more excited about our future. Thanks to the investment by Noro-Moseley Partners and Blue Lagoon Capital and the expertise they bring to the table, we can now grow faster and have even greater impact. Scaling the company drives our mission of creating value and enriching lives.”
Until 2016, Revenue Analytics was something of a consultancy, building highly customized solutions for individual customers. In recent years, however, it has been heavily invested in developing a predictive cloud platform that today comprises more than 70 analytics “micro-services.”
The company describes its flagship product — Predictive Engine — as a combination of human intelligence and machine learning. Its engineers work with customers’ revenue managers and pricing managers, IT and strategy teams, and executive leadership to identify key business objectives and processes and to tune models to drive revenue uplift and “eliminate wasted time.” Predictive Engine runs multi-variate simulations to segment customers into channels and project target product prices, taking into consideration “tens of trillions” of historical data points, local demand patterns, and competition.
Revenue Analytics says it has issued 73 trillion price recommendations to date. Moreover, it claims that it’s responsible for adjusting the prices on 42% of North American hotel rooms nightly, generating 35.7 million broadcast ad radio sales forecasts, optimizing $100 million in auto parts, and issuing 5 million cruise line pricing recommendations daily. Perhaps unsurprisingly, its clients are a veritable who’s who of automobile, hospitality, media, and service retail conglomerates, like Toyota, GM, Cedar Fair, Best Buy, NBCUniversal, Turner, iHeartMedia, Cox Media Group, A&E, Sheraton, Hyatt Regency, Westin, IHG, Marriott, Royal Caribbean, and Celebrity Cruises.
“If you booked a business trip or vacation anytime in the past decade, odds are that the price you paid was the result of a Revenue Analytics algorithm,” said Noro-Moseley Partners’ Alan Taetle. “The company’s track record of delivering results for its customers, innovative SaaS analytics platform, and strong corporate culture has paved the way for what we believe will be growing success across multiple markets. Noro-Mosley Partners is excited to be part of the Revenue Analytics journey for many years to come.”
Revenue Analytics was founded in 2005 and has over 100 employees. As part of the latest round of funding, Blue Lagoon Capital partner and cofounder Rodney Rogers will join the company’s board of directors.
Source: VentureBeat
