ZX Ventures buys out RateBeer.com

USA | ZX Ventures, AB-InBev’s venture capital firm, has acquired the remaining stake of beer ratings website RateBeer.com that it did not already own, Brewbound reported on 4 February 2019.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. ZX Ventures’ full purchase of RateBeer comes after an initial investment was made in October 2016 and disclosed in June 2017.

As is always the case when Big Brewers buy craft brewers, the official spin claims that nothing will change and that the acquired will “operate as an independent entity”. Same here.

According to Brewbound, ZX Ventures hopes to expand the RateBeer brand into “new areas”, such as “an affiliate marketplace pilot program in Australia” and further upgrades to the platform’s user experience. Whatever this means, we shall see in due course.