Swedish FinTech unicorn Klarna is “continuing to invest strategically” by buying Nuji for an undisclosed amount.
Following the acquisition, the UK-based e-commerce platform will close down in the next two months.
While Nuji doesn’t sell any products of its own, it works as kind of man-in-the-middle entity where it collects products from sellers and recommends them to buyers. Once a transaction is close to completion, the customer is transferred to the seller.
“Klarna is continuing to invest strategically when we see potential to complement our future strategy, especially when the trade is done globally and customers’ expectations are growing exponentially,” said Aoife Houlihan, VP of global communications and public policy at Klarna, told DI Digital, who broke the story.
The news comes at a time at which Klarna has grown tremendously. The buy now, pay later company picked up a $5.5bn valuation last year after raising a $460m round in August. At the time, this potentially made Klarna Europe’s most valuable private FinTech startup. Although, since then it may be sharing the throne as UK challenger Revolut also secured a $5.5bn valuation on the back of a $500m round earlier in 2020.
In either case, Klarna has not been resting on its laurels, which is not just evident from the new Nuji acquisition. In January it revealed that it was extending its services into Australia on the back of another $200m capital injection from Commonwealth Bank.
Moreover, Ant Financial, the company behind Alipay, bought a minority stake in Klarna in early March.
“For too long consumers have had to endure non-intuitive, boring and overly complex services when shopping both online and offline,” said Sebastian Siemiątkowski (pictured), CEO and co-founder of Klarna, at the time.
“At the heart of this cooperation between Klarna and Alipay is a shared ambition of innovating truly superior shopping experiences and creating destinations of inspiration for consumers across the world. Alipay and the wider Alibaba Group have truly set the global pace on retail innovation and the app economy. We are delighted in this confidence shown in Klarna in defining the future of payments and shopping and are very much looking forward to working together further in the future.”
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