profitize raises 1.4 million euros for hospitality

The South Tyrolean startup profitize has closed a seed financing round of 1.4 million euros. The round was led by the Alpine Fund (Redstone & Euregio Plus) and the aws Gründungsfonds. Several business angels from the industry are also participating.

The company plans to use the fresh capital to further develop its technology and drive forward its expansion in Europe.

Fragmented data as an industry problem

The economic situation of many hotels has recently worsened significantly: rising personnel and energy costs are combined with limited scope for pricing. At the same time, there is often a lack of a consolidated overview of their own financial data. Relevant information, from property management and accounting to staff scheduling and energy suppliers, is often spread across different systems. A holistic evaluation usually only takes place after a delay.

The profitize platform integrates this data automatically and makes it available in real time. Forecasts, budget planning, cash flow analyses and AI-supported recommendations for action are already included.

Nevertheless, we have to be honest and mention that prices in the hospitality sector have exploded significantly over the last two years. There seems to have been a shift in Germany in particular, as it is now sometimes cheaper to fly abroad and book 10 days of HP instead of booking somewhere in Germany for a week.

Founding team with an industry background

The founding team includes Simon Falkensteiner, Michael Gorfer and CTO Mark Nardi. Falkensteiner has extensive experience in the industry: He founded the revenue management system RateBoard back in 2015, which was sold to Zucchetti in 2020.

With profitize, the focus is now shifting from revenue optimization to the cost side in order to make the actual profitability of hotels more transparent.

Market penetration in Europe and investors

Just one year after going live, the platform is already being used by around 150 hotels and restaurants in several European countries. The spectrum ranges from independent boutique hotels to larger hotel groups.

Possible applications include budgeting, forecasting, cash flow management and staff productivity analyses. In one specific use case, a hotel was able to reduce its personnel costs by around 10 percent by optimizing duty scheduling based on occupancy forecasts.

The investor structure combines venture capital, public funding and industry expertise. According to Ben Scheidt, the team's proximity to the market and understanding of specific customer problems were particularly convincing. Lukas Punzet also emphasizes the strong traction and industry experience.

The capital raised will flow into three areas: the technological expansion of the platform (through anonymized industry benchmarks), expansion into existing and new markets and the development of the teams in the areas of technology and customer success.

Data-driven management of profitability

profitize is positioning itself as a central management platform for economic performance in the hotel industry. By combining financial, operational and personnel data, the start-up aims to enable hotels to make informed decisions in real time.