Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re diving into PayPal’s new holiday shopping-friendly feature, Klarna’s 2025 IPO ambitions, and sales tax automation startup Kintsugi doubling its valuation in less than a year.
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The big story
PayPal makes group purchases much easier
PayPal is launching new features that let users pool together money with friends or family to collectively pay for trips, travel, gifts, and more. And most importantly, those contributing to the pool don’t need to have a PayPal account to pay their fair share.
PayPal actually had a pooling feature in place way back in 2017, but the service was shuttered globally in November 2021. A PayPal spokesperson told TechCrunch the feature is returning “due to high customer demand” and will launch in the U.S., Germany, U.K., Italy, and Spain ahead of the holidays.
Analysis of the week
Klarna is on its way to becoming a public company after confidentially filing a draft registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
After launching in the U.S. in 2015, the buy now, pay later giant hit a hefty valuation of more than $45 billion by 2021, a figure that swiftly plummeted to $6.5 billion due to market “corrections” amid what remains a tough environment for technology IPOs. But Klarna’s valuation has reportedly risen to $14.6 billion after one investor increased its stake.
We still don’t know how many shares will be offered, or the price range of the IPO, but the announcement makes it likely for Klarna to go public sometime in the first half of 2025.
Dollars and cents
Indian travel and hospitality aggregator MakeMyTrip has agreed to acquire expense management platform Happay from fintech CRED. The financial terms were not disclosed, but Happay was acquired by CRED in 2021 for $180 million.
Sales tax automation startup Kintsugi raised a $6 million Series A round valuing it at $40 million in April. The company has reopened the round, taking on additional $4 million in capital and doubling its valuation to $80 million.
Senegal’s Socium told TechCrunch it has raised $5 million in seed funding to fuel the growth plans for its HR solutions business in Francophone Africa.
Minu closed a $30 million Series B round of funding led by QED to help the employee benefits startup further expand its sales and customer success presence across Mexico and implement new HR tools.
Prosus is aiming to list fintech firm PayU in 2025 as the Dutch investor looks to shift more focus to India. The market has been described as a pillar for its investment business after Swiggy’s stellar listing netted gains of $2 billion.
