Urbanspoon Partners With Livebookings And Dimmi On International Expansion; Also Launches In Ireland

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Restaurant app maker and reservation management system provider Urbanspoon is today expanding its international footprint through new partnerships with online reservation services Dimmi and Livebookings. The deal will allow international diners the ability to book reservations at nearly 7,000 more restaurants via the additional inventory.

Dimmi, for those unfamiliar, is a top reservation and review site founded in 2009 in Australia, which now reaches over 2,500 restaurants. To date, it has seated over 3 million diners, the company says. Livebookings, aka Europe’s OpenTable, is headquartered in London, and operates in 23 countries worldwide, including the U.S. The company offers services to consumers as well as working with distribution partners like tastecard, Afternoon Tea and Eniro.se. It now delivers over one million diners to the 9,000+ restaurants it serves.

In addition to the partnership news, Urbanspoon also announced expansion into Ireland and growth numbers for the U.S. In Ireland, the service will offer over 2,000 restaurants to the local market. Meanwhile, the company also reports that it’s now seating over 2 million diners in the U.S. per month, a number that’s doubled over the last six months.

The growth news comes at a good time for Urbanspoon, following on the heels of October’s report of layoffs at Urbanspoon parent company CityGrid. Formed in 2010 through the merger of Citysearch, Insider Pages and Urban Spoon, CityGrid cut around 15% of its workforce, primarily in technology and support functions, citing a shift from cost-per-click (CPC) advertising in the local space to a subscription-based and cost-per-acquisition (CPA) model.