Yelp Purchasing AI Lead Management Platform Hatch for $300 Million

Yelp is bolstering its AI capabilities by acquiring artificial intelligence-powered customer communication platform Hatch.

The online business directory announced the deal Wednesday (Jan. 21), saying it would employ Hatch’s lead management solutions to better assist service businesses as they adopt AI.

“The acquisition of Hatch is an important step forward in Yelp’s AI transformation, accelerating our strategy to bring powerful new AI tools to local businesses,” Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp’s co-founder and CEO, said in a news release.

“Hatch is solving challenging lead management and communication pain points for services businesses, and we’ve been impressed by the innovative AI technology and traction they’ve built. I believe that by bringing our companies together we will be able to help service providers operate and grow more efficiently.”

The release added that the agreement — set to become final in early February — will see Yelp acquire Hatch for roughly $270 million in cash with another $30 million of employee retention paid out in two to three years.

Founded in 2018, Hatch says its offering lets businesses increase retention and improve customer communication with the help of conversational AI agents for SMS, email and phone call interactions.

Yelp has been embracing artificial intelligence tools for the last few years, adding new AI-powered search capabilities in 2023 and AI-powered business summaries in 2024.

“This is an incredible moment for Hatch,” said Chris Bache, Hatch’s co-founder and chief executive. “We’ve worked day in and day out to build something that truly helps our customers grow their businesses. I’m grateful to the Hatch team for all their work and dedication that brought us to this milestone. Joining Yelp means we can scale faster and help more businesses grow and succeed.

The acquisition comes at a time when businesses are increasingly adopting agentic AI. As covered here Wednesday (Jan. 22), PYMNTS Intelligence research conducted last August showed that 52% of companies said they were just “considering” or “exploring” agentic AI. By November, that share had fallen to 30%.

“In other words, a big chunk of the enterprise market moved out of the window-shopping phase,” PYMNTS wrote. “What replaced the passive interest is hands-on implementation.”

In November, nearly a quarter of chief product officers said that they were either piloting agentic AI or fully using it in production processes, compared to just 3% in August. Actual usage and piloting were evenly divided: 12% said they were testing agents out, and another 12% have already incorporated them into their daily operations.

“The upshot is that in just three months, the number of enterprises using or testing agentic AI spiked sevenfold,” PYMNTS wrote.