PayPal Finalizes $4B Honey Acquisition

PayPal has completed a $4 billion deal — its largest to date — to acquire the shopping rewards platform Honey Science Corporation, PayPal announced Monday (Jan. 6).

With Honey, PayPal is striving to revamp the shopping journey for its customers while upping eCommerce sales and shopper engagement for its merchants.

Founded in 2012, Honey has grown from an eCommerce price-tracking tool to an expanded suite of services that include a shopping assistant and rewards program. With roughly 17 million active users each month and 30,000 diverse online retailers, Honey has delivered some $1 billion in savings to shoppers in the past year.

“We’re thrilled to complete this transformative transaction and to welcome the Honey team to the PayPal family,” said Dan Schulman, president and CEO of PayPal, in the announcement. “The addition of Honey to our platform enables a significant step forward in our commitment to provide powerful services and tools for merchants and consumers, move beyond our core checkout proposition and significantly enhance the shopping experience for our 300 million consumers and merchants.”

Honey will remain at its Los Angeles, California, headquarters, along with co-founders George Ruan and Ryan Hudson, both of whom will report directly to Senior Vice President John Kunze as they continue to head the Honey division.

“Honey’s vision has always been to give consumers the tools they need to make the best decisions with their money,” said Ruan in November when the acquisition was announced. “PayPal shares that vision, and together we can build powerful commerce capabilities that create real value for both consumers and retailers around the world.”

By driving adoption among PayPal and Venmo’s 275-plus million users, Honey will source exclusive offers from PayPal’s 24 million merchants.

“Combining PayPal’s assets and reach with our technology, we can build powerful new online shopping experiences for consumers and merchants,” said Hudson in November. “We’ll have the ability to help millions of retailers efficiently reach consumers with offers that deliver more and more value to Honey members.”

In 2018, Honey was in the midst of re-opening discussions to raise new funding. The company had previously held talks to raise approximately $100 million.