PayPal to acquire Japanese “buy now, pay later” firm Paidy for $2.7 billion

PayPal (Nasdaq: PYPL) agreed to acquire Paidy, a Japanese installment payments enabler, for around $2.7 billion.

Why it matters: This sets up a global consolidation spree in the “buy-now, pay-later space,” following Square’s agreement last month to buy Afterpay for $29 billion.

Bonus: Addi, a Bogota-based “buy-now, pay-later” startup, today announced $75 million in new Series B funding led by Greycroft.

ROI: Paidy has raised $585 million from firms like PayPal Ventures, Arbor Ventures, Visa Ventures, Unusual Ventures, SBI Holdings, Eight Roads, Goldman Sachs, Itochu Corp., JS Capital Management, Tybourne Capital Management, Soros Fund Management and Wellington Management.

The bottom line: “Japan is the third largest e-commerce market in the world, and so this is a significant move by PayPal to gain more market share both in the country and the region, specifically in the area of providing deferred payment services as an alternative to credit cards,” TechCrunch’s Kate Park writes.

LATEST VIDEO