LivingSocial Gets Hungry, Buys Onosys

Online food ordering is seen as the next frontier for local online commerce. Two leading sites, GrubHub and Seamless, have attracted more than $134 million in funding between them, and the space could bring in more than $1 billion a year in commissions from food, advertising and marketing services.

In the latest development last week, daily deal site LivingSocial acquired Onosys. LivingSocial, of course, has transitioned away from its Instant Deals platform to online ordering through the “Takeout & Delivery” area of its site. Onosys works with more than 75 restaurant chains and in 2011 said it was on target to process $90 million in online to-go orders in 2011. Among Onosys’ partners are those in the areas of business of point of sale solutions; payment processors; loyalty and giftcard providers; and hosting and security. According to Dow Jones, LivingSocial bought Onosys for roughly $6.5 million in stock, but did not disclose any additional payments in the form of cash.

For clients of BIA/Kelsey’s Marketplaces continuous advisory service run by Peter Krasilovsky, check out Peter’s recent report, “Online Food Ordering: The Category and Its Competitors.” Clients can log in here.