The bank card large American Express has acquired Tock, a restaurant reservation and occasion administration firm, from the digital commerce platform Squarespace for $400 million, American Express mentioned on Friday.
The buy of the reservation system in an all-cash deal exhibits that American Express is continuous its pursuit of the marketplace for dining-related companies, particularly after its acquisition in 2019 of Resy, a rival of Tock, which relies in Chicago. The bank card firm is appearing on insights that its clients are spending prodigiously on consuming out, it said in a press release.
“Restaurants are one among our largest card member spending classes inside journey and leisure,” with $100 billion in transactions in 2023, Howard Grosfield, president of the U.S. shopper companies division for American Express, mentioned in a press release.
Nick Kokonas, a former derivatives dealer and an proprietor of the Chicago fine-dining restaurant Alinea, began Tock in 2014. With Tock’s potential to supply prepaid reservations and deposits, tasting-menu eating places like Alinea flocked to the service.
The firm was acquired by Squarespace in 2021, and its financial institution of eating places, wineries and different venues has grown to about 7,000 contributors, American Express mentioned.
The bank card firm “will be capable to supply Tock and its clients entry to a broader community of diners,” Matt Tucker, the top of Tock, mentioned in a press release on Friday. “This is a crucial value-add to our restaurant companions.”
The eating reservation business chief is OpenTable, whose community consists of greater than 55,000 eating places, bars and different venues, in accordance with its web site.
American Express additionally mentioned on Friday that it had acquired Rooam, a platform for contactless funds that’s utilized in bars, eating places, stadiums and different venues. It didn’t disclose the sum it will pay for the platform.
