Just over a year after it won the inaugural Make It In Brooklyn pitch competition (and the attendant $50,000 cash prize), the Brooklyn-based startup Happy has been acquired by PaidEasy, a New York-based mobile payment app for restaurants.
For PaidEasy, which is lining up big restaurants in Miami and New York, and expanding into other cities in North America, the Happy acquisition adds an element of discovery to its services, says chief executive Gregg Jackowitz.
Happy’s app lets users know of discounts on food and beverages set at a restaurant — and gives a restaurant the ability to flexibly set the notifications for off-peak hours when business is less than booming.
Specific terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but the deal was a combination of cash and stock.
The restaurant payments space has become a tightly contested one, but no clear winner has yet to emerge.
Cover, which was acquired by the U.K.-based mobile reservations, discovery and payments app Velocity, had some early traction, while OpenTable competitor Reserve acquired the payment processor Dash in its bid to gobble up payment real-estate and TabbedOut is doing the same. Meanwhile, startups like Salido attack payments from the restaurant table.
Long story short, it’s a competitive landscape for mobile payments in restaurants and bars. However, the combined strengths of the two companies means there’s a better chance for the new and improved PaidEasy to make a splash in the market.