Yelp acquires restaurant waitlist app Nowait for $40m

Business ratings and reviews company Yelp has acquired Nowait, a restaurant waitlist and seating platform, $40m (£33m) all-in-cash deal. Yelp had previously made a strategic investment in Nowait – which is included in the price of the acquisition.

Having previously integrated with the Yelp app, to enable restaurants to share real-time seating availability, Yelp will hope Nowait can further complement its reservations, and food pickup and delivery, service Eat24.

Nowait, founded in Pittsburgh in 2010, targets casual dining establishments rather than places people would traditionally associate with reservations. It is currently live at around 4,000 restaurants across the US and Canada. Its service, along with waitlist and seating, also offers real-time communication between the restaurant and the customer.

“With this acquisition, we’ll make even bigger strides in the restaurant industry by allowing Yelp users to more quickly move from search and discovery to transacting at a local business,” said Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp CEO and co-founder.

Ware Sykes, Nowait’s CEO, added: “We’ve had a successful partnership and we’re excited to align fully with Yelp to drive even faster adoption.”