On Monday, checkout technology company Bolt announced its acquisition of Swedish technology company Tipser so as to enable direct checkout on any digital platform.
Although the monetary details of the deal were not disclosed by both Bolt and Tipser, but the all-stock deal is estimated to be around $200 million. The acquisition of Tipser comes shortly after Bolt raised $393 million in its Series D funding round in October. Although acquiring Tipser was part of what the company planned to do with the funds from its last funding round, the company’s CEO revealed that the acquisition has been in the works for some time, even before the funding round was completed. It is pertinent to know that when Bolt started showing interest in acquiring Tipser, the company was not willing to sell and was preparing for its next funding round where it raised more than $14 million. According to Bolt’s CEO, the companies came to a common ground after finding out that their goals and work ethics align. “We saw how significant Tipser could be for Bolt. They had been perfecting their embedded commerce technology for a decade and were the only formidable player. They were stronger than us in areas where we were weaker. It is very strategic to have them on our team”, Bolt’s CEO said.
Tipser’s technology is a game-changer. This technology allows consumers to make purchases from platforms across different categories such as mobile marketplaces, price comparison sites, online publications, etc. It was founded in 2012 byAxel Wolrath, Jonas Sjöstedt and Marcus Jacobsson, who is also the company CEO.
The terms of the acquisition include that Tipser’s team remains but Bolt plans on increasing the number by 100 people. Tipser will also serve as Bolt’s European headquarters; Bolt has been planning its entrance into Europe and Tipser will make all of that easy.
Bolt is also launching a new ‘Remote Checkout’ tool for shoppers. This will make it possible for them to make a purchase from the exact point of discovery. The company has been working on the tool for about a year now and confesses that the tool was inspired by Instagram Checkout that allows users to discover a product and checkout directly from Instagram.
