USA – ZX Ventures, the venture capital fund backed by AB InBev has acquired 100% ownership of the beer rating website RateBeer, according to founder Joe Tucker’s statement on the company website.
RateBeer is a quality-focused organization and widely recognized as the most in-depth, accurate, and one of the most-visited source for beer information.
ZX Ventures took a minority stake in RateBeer in 2016, but the deal aroused conflict of interest, in regard to possible biased beer ratings with AB InBev in the picture.
RateBeer said the acquisition enabled it to make improvements to infrastructure, put out an in-house mobile app, and modernize key pages.
Joe Tucker said the transaction provides access to greater resources, critical in modernizing the site, and expand into new areas, like an affiliate marketplace in Australia.
RateBeer is a world site for craft beer enthusiasts and is dedicated to serving the entire craft beer community through beer education, promotion and outreach, according to the company website.
“RateBeer is a quality-focused organization, and our value to the community has always depended on our integrity, and willingness to put in greater effort to produce more meaningful scores and information.
I’m very grateful for having the opportunity to serve you all.
It’s been a great pleasure meeting so many of you in person, and through this more fully understanding our important role in industry, and the joy, pride and responsibility felt by so many out there in RateBeeria,” said Joe Tucker.
Joe Tucker will remain working on the project in the same role, as global community manager.
The founder had revealed that the initial investment led to backlash from RateBeer users as well as well-known craft brewers such as Dogfish Head and Karl Strauss, among others, who questioned the unbiased nature of the site and asked for their ratings to be removed.
In addition to RateBeer.com, ZX Ventures also owns a beer website called October, as well as homebrew store Northern Brewer.
The ZX Ventures investment portfolio consists of beer brands such as Pirate Life, Camden Town Brewery and 4 Pines.
Earlier this year, ZX Ventures invested in US developer of a new retail inventory visibility system, Pensa Systems.
