Klarna buys Stocard in 110 million euro deal
Klarna, a shopping and payments platform that is fast expanding to various regions of Europe, has acquired the German shopping application Stocart though both the companies have been pretty tightlipped about the deal so far.
The deal is supposed to have happened for €110 million and this means that Stocart would come under the Klarna brand. Klarna has been growing aggressively over the past few months and recently received investments from Ant Financial, the Chinese investment giant. It has been using these new funds to acquire companies and potential competitors in this space so that it would help its growth across Europe.
Just recently, Klarna had acquired another social shopping platform Hero in what was seen as an acquisition that would help it to move into social commerce in the long run. Klarna is also into the BNPL (buy now pay later) business but with this space expected to see a lot of competition in the coming months, due to the entry of majors like Apple and Paypal, Klarna is likely to focus on shopping and e-commerce in the coming years.
Stocard owners had initially planned to take the company public and had also been aggressively raising funds over the last few months but maybe the offer was too good this time and hence have decided to sell out and move out of the management team as is expected that the team from Klarna would be managing Stocart henceforth. Ant Financial is also reported to have been part of this acquisition and it makes sense for them to invest in this deal as they are already partners with Klarna. Ant Financial also owns WeChat which is fast growing into a super app not just within China but outside as well.
Stocart reports to be having more than 60 million users across the various countries in Europe and this acquisition should help both Klarna and Ant Financial a great deal in pushing their brands across the region. Klarna would be able to throw open its services to potential 60 million users and if there is good uptake of its services from this set of users, then this acquisition is likely to make a lot of business sense. This will also help to grow its reach and in the stiff competition expected in the BNPL and payment space, which is expected in the coming months, it would help to be the first mover and it also puts a lot of pressure on other startups.
