POS supplier Par Technology is acquiring Bridg, a software provider that helps businesses identify anonymous customers using their credit card data.
Par said Bridg will allow restaurants to learn more about the 60% to 80% of customers who are not part of their loyalty program, providing a more complete view of their audience and allowing them to connect directly with more customers.
“Restaurants are so desperate to figure out who these other customers are, and nobody really does a great job of that,” Par CEO Savneet Singh said in an interview Monday.
New Hartford, New York-based Par will pay $27.5 million in stock for Bridg, which is currently owned by Cardlytics, a digital advertising platform. Price adjustments could take the price up to a maximum of $30 million, the company said.
That represents a steep discount from the $350 million that Cardlytics paid to acquire Bridg in 2021, a price Singh said was closer to $560 million due to an earn-out in the deal.
“It was a really cool, hot technology that didn’t work well under its current ownership,” Singh said, citing issues with synergy and with the earn-out. “But the product was fantastic.”
Bridg uses multiple datasets to help generate customer profiles that include details like visit frequency, demographics, spend levels and order preferences. Restaurants can then contact these customers to see if they would like to enroll in the loyalty program or receive marketing messages.
Restaurants are increasingly interested in gathering and analyzing customer data, as it allows them to tailor their marketing and menu offerings for customers. But in-person transactions are largely a data blind spot.
There are many tech companies that can help restaurants identify those customers, Singh said, but Bridg works with a particularly large set of data. That means, for instance, that if a customer uses three different credit cards, Bridg can usually tie all of them back to the individual.
“Bridg is the most complete solution, so we have more data,” Singh said. “Also the history, because they’ve been doing it a lot longer than anybody else, so we can know what works for customers and what doesn’t work for customers.”
Bridg was founded in 2012 and is based in Los Angeles.
Par said the deal will make it the largest scaled data platform in the restaurant industry. In addition to a POS system, the company offers online ordering, loyalty and back-office products. It works with large chains including Burger King and Arby’s and recently announced an agreement with Papa Johns.
Some of Par's customers already use Bridg, Singh said. For those that don’t, it will become available later this year as part of its loyalty product.
Bridg is the latest in a series of acquisitions by Par that has included Punchh, Menu, Delaget, Task and Stuzo. The deal is expected to close in the current quarter.
Par’s stock was up 0.095% on Monday afternoon.
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