Montréal retail tech company Lightspeed has announced that it expanded its systems integration partnership with United States restaurant reservation platform provider OpenTable.
“We’ve seen success in Europe, and we look forward to bringing these capabilities to … North America.”
– Susan Lee, chief growth officer at OpenTable
This integration is set to enable Lightspeed and OpenTable’s systems to communicate in real-time with a single platform. Users will be provided with insights to better understand diner behaviour and spending, as well as updates on table status.
A spokesperson for Lightspeed told BetaKit that this integration with OpenTable was first available in the UK in May 2021 and has now expanded to North America.
According to Lightspeed’s hospitality general manager, Peter Dougherty, this partnership will also give management and staff in-depth guest details for every reservation.
Founded in 2005 by former CEO Dax Dasilva, Lightspeed offers a cloud-based point-of-sale and commerce software for retail, hospitality, and golf merchants. Lightspeed’s restaurant platform allows users to provide delivery and contactless online ordering, adjust their floor plan, track inventory, and accept different types of payments.
Lightspeed also offers a reservation system, through a network of table reservation integrations that now includes OpenTable.
Since its inception around two decades ago, OpenTable now claims to serve over 50,000 restaurants. In 2014, OpenTable was acquired by Booking Holdings, which trades on the Nasdaq. As of 2019, OpenTable claims that it seats more than 31 million diners via online reservations each month and that nearly 60,000 restaurants around the world are bookable through its platform. It has integrations with more than 600 brands, including Amazon Alexa, Facebook Messenger, Google, Instagram, Snapchat, TripAdvisor, and Yahoo.
The US company’s online reservation platform also includes digital ordering, table management, online waitlists, marketing, loyalty programs, and guest intelligence—this puts OpenTable in a competition with Lightspeed as their product suites overlap. Lightspeed, for example, also offers table management and waitlists.
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Apart from OpenTable, Lightspeed’s table reservation network also consists of Libro Reservations, Tablebooker, Resengo, Bike Rental Manager, GolfBack, and Booxi, the latter of which raised $1.5 million last November after previously being bootstrapped.
“Our integration partnership with Lightspeed gives restaurants even more tools to help provide exceptional hospitality,” said Susan Lee, chief growth officer for OpenTable. “We’ve seen success in Europe, and we look forward to bringing these capabilities to more owners and operators across North America,” she added.
Lightspeed Restaurant was launched in 2014 along with the company’s acquisition of Belgium-based mobile hospitality POS company POSIOS. Last year the platform was revamped and made available in North America.
Lightspeed Restaurant was built on the technology of a number of Lightspeed’s acquisitions, including United States-based Upserve, Germany’s Gastrofix, Australia-based Kounta, and Switzerland’s iKentoo.
Featured image from Hitesh Dewasi via Unsplash.