Olo Strengthens Restaurant Tech Stack with Strategic Loyalty Acquisition

In a significant move following its transition to private ownership, Olo has completed its first major acquisition by purchasing Spendgo. The deal is designed to accelerate the development of a vertically integrated technology platform for the restaurant industry. A key question for the market is whether this purchase will tangibly enhance customer retention. The likely answer hinges on Olo's strategy to seamlessly weave together loyalty, ordering, and payment functionalities.

The Spendgo technology is being integrated immediately, providing Olo's existing restaurant partners with instant access to a comprehensive loyalty suite. The acquisition also brings the entire Spendgo leadership team into Olo's fold.

This acquisition enables the immediate launch of the Olo Loyalty platform. A core feature of the Spendgo system is its password-free design, which utilizes a customer's mobile phone number to streamline the sign-up process. By connecting directly to existing ordering, payment, and marketing tools, the platform aims to reduce friction during user registration and improve conversion rates across the ordering, payment, and loyalty program journey.

Technically, the integration is being built upon Olo's existing accounts architecture. This approach is intended to facilitate a smooth transition for guests moving between different functions and to guarantee a cohesive user experience.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Olo?

Scaling Hospitality Through Consolidation

Now under the direction of private equity firm Thoma Bravo—following a $2 billion take-private transaction earlier this year—Olo is pursuing market consolidation as part of its "Hospitality at Scale" initiative. The company notes that over 65% of relevant restaurant locations already use some form of loyalty program, indicating strong internal demand for a unified solution.

The transaction adds approximately 120 new brands to Olo's portfolio, including chains like Cold Stone Creamery and Captain D's. Olo's long-term vision involves capturing loyalty data from initial registration through to reward redemption within a single, unified customer profile. This consolidation is expected to enable more precise attribution, richer behavioral analytics, and more targeted communication, all without the need to manage multiple third-party interfaces.

On the product roadmap, a deeper technical integration between the loyalty engine and Olo's delivery management system is scheduled for early 2026. The company emphasizes that safeguarding data integrity is a central competitive advantage against more fragmented service providers. For franchise operators, the combined platform offers a single point of contact for ordering and customer engagement tools, thereby reducing operational complexity.

Olo has slated the rollout of these announced technical enhancements for early 2026. The company anticipates that restaurant chains will benefit from unified guest data, deeper product integrations, and simplified support structures as a result.