It has been reported in the German press that Klarna has acquired a German shopping cart ecommerce company called Shop.co. If your German is up to it, you can read the full story here.
The deal was announced by Shop.co, which is based in Düsseldorf, in an mail founder Jay Habib sent to users. In that he wrote that his company had been acquired by a ‘leading European tech company’. However, it soon became apparent that it was Klarna because several Shop.co employees had changed the name of their employee on their LinkedIN profiles.
Exact details and the nature of the deal haven’t been revealed but reports suggested a mid-range double digit price. Last year, Shop.co raised $7 million dollars in a fundraising round at a valuation of $27 million
It was later clarified by Klarna that the price paid wasn’t as high as some media were speculating although exact details were not revealed. They also said that the deal was predominantly about acquiring intellectual property and only 8 members of staff would be retained, according to other reports. It also reported that the service will likely be discontinued and absorbed into the Klarna service. Likely more information will emerge over the next few weeks, so if you hear anything do let us know.
The shop.co service is rather nifty and it’s not hard to see the appeal of understanding exactly how it works, which is why it has been acquired. It’s a browser plug-in that means that you can shop at any online store in the US and then using it, check out from them all in one go. So anything that greases of the wheels on online shopping is to be welcomed and this adds not just convenience to shoppers by saving them time when multiple items from multiple shops but there is also a trust benefit. Have you used the service?
