Ecommerce platform to integrate table management and other capabilities
Squarespace has acquired reservations platform Tock for more than $400 million in cash and stock, the ecommerce company said Wednesday.
New York City-based Squarespace said the acquisition of the system, developed by the Alinea Group co-founder and co-owner Nick Kokonas, would allow its customers to integrate Tock’s “best-in-class” system for managing reservations and tables and taking orders for takeout and events.
Kokonas will remain Tock's CEO, he said in a Tweet.
"Ecommerce within the restaurant and hospitality industries is a large and growing market opportunity," Squarespace Founder & CEO Anthony Casalena said in a release announcing the purchase. "I've long admired Tock's vision to reimagine how reservation-based businesses connect with their customers. We believe that together we will continue building on their success, bringing Tock's capabilities to our all-in-one product suite in service of our customers in the hospitality industry and beyond."
Chicago-based Kokonas said Squarespace and Tock “have a shared mission of elevating and enabling our customers' success and passion.”
"Combining Tock's unified platform and years of hospitality industry expertise with Squarespace's reach, resources, and design-forward products, in our view, creates an opportunity to deliver a best-in-class solution to millions of entrepreneurs and small businesses around the world," he added.
Kokonas launched Tock in 2014, initially allowing his super-fine-dining restaurant Alinea to sell reservations in advance. Since then it has expanded its capabilities to include dynamic pricing — such as charging extra for prime-time reservations — takeout and delivery and event planning. In response to the pandemic it launched Tock to Go to allow restaurateurs to schedule their own takeout orders instead of relying on third-party delivery services.
The release said Tock is now being used by more than 7,000 operators, including neighborhood and destination restaurants, wineries and pop-ups, in 200 cities in 30 countries. It has processed more than $1 billion in pre-paid experiences as well as millions of standard reservations.
Other recent Squarespace acquisitions include appointment scheduling platform Acuity Scheduling and Unfold, an app that helps create better social media stories.
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected]
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