Retail bank and buy now pay later (BNPL) specialist Klarna closed a deal to acquire the price comparison platform PriceRunner in a move to bring enhanced app features to Klarna shoppers. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
Klarna aims to make banking and payments a positive experience that can empower customers “from product discovery to paying in a way that suits them,” David Fock, Klarna’s chief product officer, said in a press release on Tuesday (Nov. 2).
“The acquisition will serve to strengthen our bank, card and payment services and support a competitive global landscape. It also further cements that Klarna will not be a marketplace but a viable and competitive alternative for retail partners versus Amazon, Google and Facebook,” Fock said.
He pointed to PriceRunner as a “talented, passionate group” that is a “perfect fit” for Klarna, and looks forward to “what we can achieve together.”
See also: Klarna Makes Preemptive Move, Overhauls BNPL
Headquartered in Germany and launched about 20 years ago, PriceRunner will bring multiple new features, including product reviews, product discovery and price comparisons, all intended to upgrade the user experience for shopping, paying and banking worldwide.
PriceRunner has offices in the U.K., Sweden, Denmark and Norway, and impartially compares 3.4 million products from 22,500 retailers in 25 countries. Over the past year, the company’s revenues reached 460 million Swedish krona ($53.7 million) and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 52%.
Mikael Lindahl, CEO of PriceRunner, said that the company just spent five years re-creating the platform “from scratch” in order to develop a “best-in-class comparison shopping service” that would assist merchant partners in fine-tuning their businesses.
“We see Klarna as the ideal partner to accelerate growth and achieve our long-term vision to become the most loved comparison shopping service in the world,” Lindahl said.
Read more: Klarna Teams With Stripe to Help Online Businesses Grow Revenue
Klarna offers a comprehensive shopping experience, including product suggestions, flexible payments, delivery, order tracking and returns. All of these features will be ungraded with the addition of PriceRunner’s capabilities. More than 250,000 retailers have teamed with Klarna, including H&M, IKEA, Expedia Group, Samsung, ASOS, Peloton, Abercrombie & Fitch, Nike and AliExpress.
Other services offered by Klarna include payments, social shopping and personal finances. Founded in 2005 and available in 17 countries, the company was recently valued at $45.6 billion. Its workforce includes 4,000 employees.
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