Squarespace, Inc.
Acquisitions
4
Major Deals Covered
$710M
Disclosed Deal Value
Squarespace's largest disclosed acquisition here is Tock for $400M in 2021. This page covers 4 major deals from 2019 to 2023, each with its price where disclosed and the reason behind it.
| Company | Year | Price | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Domains Asset Portfolio | 2023 | $180.0M | Acquired the domain registration business and customer accounts of Google Domains. |
| Tock | 2021 | $400.0M | Acquired the premier hospitality reservation, table management, and event ticketing platform. |
| Acuity Scheduling | 2019 | $100.0M | Acquired leading online appointment scheduling and calendar management software. |
| Unfold | 2019 | $30.0M | Acquired viral mobile social media storytelling and template design application. |
2023
$180M
Acquired the domain registration business and customer accounts of Google Domains.
Added approximately 10 million registered domains, establishing Squarespace as one of the largest domain registrars in the world.
Integrated into Squarespace Domains.
2021
$400M
Acquired the premier hospitality reservation, table management, and event ticketing platform.
Expanded Squarespace's commerce footprint into high-end restaurants and hospitality before selling the asset to American Express in 2024 for $400M.
Divested to American Express in 2024 to refocus on core SMB website SaaS.
2019
$100M
Acquired leading online appointment scheduling and calendar management software.
Empowered service-based SMBs, consultants, and studios to manage client bookings and payments natively within Squarespace.
Integrated natively as Squarespace Scheduling.
2019
$30M
Acquired viral mobile social media storytelling and template design application.
Expanded Squarespace's mobile creator footprint, serving millions of Instagram and TikTok influencers.
Operated as Squarespace's mobile social creation suite.
Squarespace was taken private by Permira, and its growth plans centre on commerce and AI. It is upgrading its selling tools so independent creators can sell digital downloads and memberships, which puts it in more direct competition with Shopify. Squarespace Blueprint uses AI to generate a multi-page website from a short description of the business.
Squarespace makes money mainly from recurring subscriptions, which it reported in two segments while public. Presence revenue (website plans, domains, Google Workspace email resale, email campaigns and Acuity Scheduling) was $215.4 million in Q2 2024, up 25% year over year. Commerce revenue (Commerce plan subscriptions plus payment processing and transaction fees from merchants) was $81.4 million, up 8%. Most customers pay monthly or annually in advance, which gives the business predictable cash collections; domains acquired from Google in 2023 act as a low-cost funnel for selling websites and email.
In June 2023, Squarespace announced the acquisition of Google Domains from Alphabet/Google for approximately $180 million. The historic transaction transferred roughly 10 million registered domain names and millions of customer accounts from Google to Squarespace, closing in late 2023.
Google chose to wind down Google Domains as part of an effort to sharpen its corporate focus on core search, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. Google selected Squarespace as the preferred successor because of its modern infrastructure, seamless customer onboarding, and long-standing partnership as a Google Workspace reseller.
In April 2019, Squarespace acquired online appointment scheduling platform Acuity Scheduling for an undisclosed sum. Acuity allowed service professionals (consultants, salons, tutors, doctors) to manage client bookings and automated payments, adding a high-margin recurring SaaS product to Squarespace's ecosystem.
In October 2019, Squarespace acquired Unfold, a viral mobile app founded by Alfonso Cobo and Andy McCune that provided designer templates for Instagram Stories and social media posts. The acquisition gave Squarespace a direct pipeline into mobile-first content creators and social media influencers.
In March 2021, Squarespace acquired restaurant reservation and hospitality management platform Tock (founded by Nick Kokonas) for over $400 million in cash and stock, aiming to help restaurants manage dining reservations, takeout, and event ticketing.
In June 2024, Squarespace agreed to sell Tock to American Express for $400 million in cash. While Tock was successful, restaurant table management was adjacent to Squarespace's core focus on websites and domains. The sale allowed Squarespace to streamline operations and monetize the asset ahead of the Permira buyout.
Throughout its history, Squarespace completed several tuck-in acqui-hires of elite boutique design studios and digital product agencies in New York, absorbing top UI/UX designers and front-end engineers to enhance its core template design capabilities.
Squarespace coordinated with ICANN and Google to transition domain registrar credentials, DNS hosting, WHOIS privacy protections, and renewal billing pipelines over a multi-month period, ensuring millions of website domains experienced zero downtime.
Squarespace preserved Google Domains' renewal pricing for grandfathered users during their first renewal cycle while introducing tailored upgrade promotions offering discounted Squarespace website hosting, bio sites, and professional email suites.
Squarespace utilized M&A selectively to acquire strategic capabilities that would take years to build internally—such as scheduling infrastructure (Acuity), mobile design apps (Unfold), and massive domain distribution scale (Google Domains).
The transaction was reviewed by U.S. and international antitrust authorities, who approved the sale without objection because the domain registration market remained highly fragmented among GoDaddy, Namecheap, Tucows, and Web.com.
Under Permira, Squarespace is well-positioned to pursue accretive bolt-on acquisitions in digital marketing software, AI design automation, client invoicing, and international regional domain registries.
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