Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN) has been one of the world’s fastest growing companies over the past few years. However, the company has found it difficult to keep up the momentum, especially as the daily-deals business shows signs of maturity.
To find more growth, Groupon is moving into new categories; for instance, last week the company announced a mobile payments system for merchants.
But this might just be the start. This week, Groupon announced a deal to acquire Savored, which allows people to use the Internet and mobile devices to make restaurant reservations. Savored also offers significant discounts to consumers.
The startup is small, with a footprint of just more than 1,000 participating restaurant locations. Still, Groupon should be able to leverage its huge sales force of more than 5,500 people to pump the business.
Tom Taulli runs the InvestorPlace blog IPOPlaybook, a site dedicated to the hottest news and rumors about initial public offerings. He also is the author of “All About Short Selling” and “All About Commodities.” Follow him on Twitter at @ttaulli. As of this writing, he did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
A long-time follower of the IPO scene, back in 1999 Tom started one of the first sites in the space called WebIPO. It was a place where investors got research as well as access to deals for the dot-com boom. Tom also wrote the top-selling book, Investing in IPOs. In it, he covers all the aspects of analyzing an IPO, such as reading the prospectus, detecting the risk factors and understanding some of the arcane regulations. But don’t worry — if that process is too intimidating for you, thankfully Tom will do the legwork for you right here in the IPO Playbook blog.
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