Squarespace acquires appointment scheduling platform Acuity Scheduling

Squarespace on Tuesday announced it's acquiring Acuity Scheduling, an online appointment scheduling platform. The deal comes as Squarespace puts more focus on providing professional services -- one of the website builder's fastest-growing verticals.

"As Squarespace has evolved as a company, we've moved beyond helping our customers build great websites, and on to allowing them to build and run great businesses," Squarespace founder and CEO Anthony Casalena wrote in a blog post.

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Founded in 2006, Acuity now supports more than 50,000 businesses and major corporations, according to its website, and has facilitated the scheduling and management of millions of appointments worldwide. 

 "Acuity has succeeded in building a lean, profitable company in the face of strong competition — a story that aligns closely with our roots," Casalena wrote.
 
While the terms of the deal were not disclosed, all 45 Acuity employees have accepted full-time offers to join Squarespace.
 
Acuity's platform has integrated with Squarespace's page building system for a number of years, and "by joining forces, we will now be able to deeply integrate our product lines," Casalena wrote. Squarespace also intends to keep offering Acuity as a standalone product.
 
In addition to this acquisition, Squarespace this week is releasing several updates to its native email marketing product, including new editing tools, an enhanced analytics panel and automatic list maintenance. It's also introducing tools to schedule and automate campaigns such as newsletters and promotions.

"Providing a complete suite of integrated tools is a huge win for small businesses who benefit from managing their brand in one place," Casalena wrote.