Duetto CEO on What's Next After Sale to Private Equity

29.06.2024 - 13:17 / skift.com / Justin Dawes / Brad Gerstner

David Woolenberg, the CEO of Duetto, spoke with Skift about what’s next for the company following an acquisition by private equity firm GrowthCurve Capital. 

The interview on Friday afternoon was his first since Thursday’s announcement.

With resources from the new owners, Duetto plans to accelerate its AI strategy, launch new lines of business, and expand into new markets.

Woolenberg spoke about those plans and more.

Duetto provides hotel companies with a software platform meant to streamline revenue management, online marketing, merchandising, and data-based analysis. Hotels can use the products to set room rates that adjust automatically based on market changes. Some of Duetto’s competitors include IDeaS and Cendyn Group’s Guestrev, formerly called Rainmaker. 

The company is headquartered in San Francisco, and its employees have been fully remote since the pademic.

The acquisition provides Duetto with capital to fund tech investment and business expansion, but Duetto is still in charge of running its own company, Woolenberg said. All operations are continuing as before, and all executives and employees are staying with Duetto.

A major part of Duetto’s plan with the new capital is to accelerate tech and AI investment.

Duetto has been focused on revenue management for hotels, but it expanded to meetings and events with the acquisition of MiceRate in February.

Duetto says its tech is used by more than 6,000 hotel and casino resort properties in more than 60 countries. The company increased reports of that number in its marketing materials from 4,000 shortly after its February acquisition of MiceRate.

Duetto’s MiceRate acquisition was its first.

There were several questions about the deal and the company that Woolenberg declined to answer.

GrowthCurve purchased Duetto from Warburg Pincus affiliates and other shareholders, according to the press release. Woolenberg declined to say how much of the company was owned by Warburg, or who its other shareholders were.

Duetto had raised a total of more than $141 million in venture capital prior to the acquisition.

The most recent fundraise was an $80 million series D round in 2018 led by Warburg Pincus.

“Pre-yesterday, we had multiple investors in the company, both in the venture capital world as well as private equity world, which is primarily Warburg,” Woolenberg said.

Other firms that have invested over the years include: Icon Ventures, Spectrum 28, Accel Partners, Battery Ventures, Altimeter Capital, and Quest Hospitality Ventures.

Individual investors have included: Leland Pillsbury of Thayer Ventures, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Brad Gerstner of Altimeter, former Expedia CEO Rich Barton, and former Hotel Tonight CEO Sam Shank.

Duetto started in 2012,