Rainmaker Group Sells Division for $300 Million to Focus on Hotel Revenue Management

The Rainmaker Group, a software company, is selling its tools for property owners to manage demand of multifamily housing units to RealPage, a software provider to the real estate industry for $300 million.

Rainmaker, based in Alpharetta, Georgia, will use the money to focus its efforts on its hospitality and gaming revenue management tools. Hotels using these tools set their rates according to a guest’s past behaviors and can predict overall spending so that someone who frequents the spa might get a cheaper nightly rate than another guest who is unlikely to spend at the property.

In 2012, Rainmaker Group raised $33.8 million from Norwest Partners, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. In 2014, Rainmaker acquired Rent Jungle, a company with data on multifamily rentals. In 2015, Rainmaker saw three-year growth in annual revenue rise 86 percent, to $38.9 million. In late 2015, it bought RevCaster, a small competitor in price monitoring.

In 2016, it added clients such as Best Western and Two Roads Hospitality. It has offices in Alpharetta, Georgia; Las Vegas, and Singapore.

RealPage, based in Richardson, Texas, will focus on incorporating the tools, which help housing operators maximize revenue from apartment leases, to its data analytics services.

Overall, the hotel industry is becoming interested in paying for demand optimization software. A recent study of some 400 hoteliers found that about 60 percent are seeing interest in new concepts like “total revenue management” (which incorporates a bigger picture of the factors involved in wooing and serving a guest).

Yet fewer than 10,000 hotels (out of about 160,000 worldwide) are using revenue management software today.

With that market gap, Rainmaker Group faces many competitors, such as Duetto, IDeaS, Revinate, and LodgIQ. To better position itself, Rainmaker this month hired Ellis Connolly, the former chief revenue officer for guest engagement management software company TrustYou.