Tock
“Can Amex turn Tock+Resy into the reservation-and-payments layer for premium hospitality, monetizing bookings via card-linked spend?”
Founded2014
HQChicago, Illinois, United States
FoundersNick Kokonas, Brian Fitzpatrick, Grant Achatz
Total raised$27.5M (pre-acquisition)
Latest roundAcquired by American Express, 2024
Valuation$400M (acquisition price)
IndustryVertical SaaS / Restaurants
The story
Tock originated as a prepaid ticketing system for high-end restaurants (Alinea, French Laundry), pioneering deposits and non-refundable reservations to reduce no-shows. Squarespace acquired it in 2021 for $400M as a bet on hospitality SaaS; three years later Squarespace sold it to American Express for the same $400M as Amex consolidated its Resy + Tock reservations franchise. Under Amex, Tock is being integrated into the Resy network and cross-sold with Amex payment products.
Product timeline
2014
Founded in Chicago by Nick Kokonas, Brian Fitzpatrick, and Grant Achatz as a prepaid reservation ticketing platform, initially for Alinea Group restaurants.· banking
2020
Pivoted to support carryout/delivery during COVID; processing ~$2M/day in pre-paid tickets.· pivot
2021
Acquired by Squarespace for $400M.· acquisition
2022
Founder Nick Kokonas departs; Tock launches wine delivery.· pivot
2024
American Express acquires Tock from Squarespace for $400M, merging it into the Resy network.· acquisition
The stack
2 layers disclosed in Tock’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
Accounting
in the full report
Accounting gap: significant
3 more providers across 1 layer, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.