Both Groupon (GRPN +0.34%) and SideTour announced today on separate blog posts (here and here) that the popular daily deals site had acquired the company that allows users to both host and join unique travel experiences. SideTour currently has operations in four major U.S. cities: Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC, but has ambitions to expand across the U.S. and around the globe.
While the terms of the deal were not disclosed, in a disclosure to the SEC in March of this year the New York-based SideTour said it had raised $2.5 million in addition to $1.5 million that was raised in October of 2011.
SideTour enables small groups to purchase tickets to local events spanning from art, history, food and drink, and anything else that "delivers fun, new and uncommon ways for people to enjoy and explore their cities." Groupon announced SideTour would be joining the GrouponLive suite of offerings, which allows users to receive deals on local entertainment and other offerings.
Vipin Goyal, the co-founder and CEO of SideTour, said in a statement that the integration of the service into Groupon meant simply that it would "be able to reach so many more people than we ever could on our own."
GrouponLive General Manager Greg Rudin said adding SideTour "furthers our vision of Groupon as the go-to place for consumers to find anything, anywhere, anytime."
This acquisition marks Groupon's second in the last 10 days, as on Sept. 9 it announced it had acquired European travel website Blink, also for an undisclosed amount. It was also reported in August that Groupon had acquired social gifting app Plumfare.
