E-commerce platform Squarespace announced today it has acquired Tock, an online platform for managing reservations, tables, takeout, and more, for $400 million. The deal is a mix of cash and stock, according to a press release from Squarespace.
Chicago, Illinois-based Tock’s extensive feature list includes reservation, waitlist, and table management, event management, and, more recently, pickup and delivery order management and contactless ordering and payments features. Tock’s sell to restaurants and other foodservice businesses is that establishments can view and manage all these moving parts from a single dashboard. The system integrates with third-party POS platforms, not to mention a boat-load of other technologies, from social media platforms to third-party delivery services.
That Squarespace would want to acquire the company is not that surprising. Squarespace, which privately filed to go public in January of this year, has built a business on providing DIY(ish) website and e-commerce building tools for businesses. Right now, thanks to the pandemic, there are a lot of restaurants in need of digital properties (websites, apps, etc.) that can accommodate the industry-wide shift towards to go orders and more digital forms of ordering and payments. These are all features Tock has in its arsenal, and which Squarespace will now be able to offer to potential customers in the hospitality business.
In a statement today, Squarespace CEO Anthony Casalena called e-commerce “a large and growing market opportunity” in the restaurant business. “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,” he said.
To date, Tock has raised $27.5 million in funding.
