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The payments industry gets shaken up this past week with reductions in valuations, canceled merger agreement, as well as movement in M&A activity. To kick things off, Flywire announced this week their acquisition of Cohort Go, a complementary cross-border payments provider geared towards the education vertical. This acquisition builds on Flywire’s existing product suite as well as further broadens their presence across the Asia-Pacific region. Separately, Klarna announced the closing of a new $800 million in financing, which is aimed to help support their growth in the U.S. This new funding round values the company at $6.7 billion, down approximately 85% from their $45 billion valuation at a June funding round last year. Correspondingly, Stripe’s internal valuation has reportedly dropped by 28% according to people familiar with the matter. It is reported that Stripe’s internal share price has dropped to $29, down from the previous $40 a share. Stripe’s implied value now resides around $74 billion, a drop from their $95 billion valuation last year.
In other M&A news, the Australian buy now pay later provider, Zip, has pulled out of their merger agreement with Sezzle due to current macroeconomic and market conditions. This merger was initially announced in February for a reported value of about $330 million.