PayPal made its largest acquisition yesterday.
The online payments company bought promo code-finder
Honey for $4 billion, betting that the Chrome extension and mobile product will give PayPal a leg up in deal discovery. 💸
A brief history: LA-based Honey was founded in 2012 and has flown somewhat under the radar since its
launch. But early adopters quickly “got” Honey’s value — it saved them money while shopping and made googling promo codes a thing of the past.
“I was buying a GoDaddy domain, Honey automatically plugged in a bunch of promo codes and tested them all out, and I saved 14 dollars on a $15 domain. I only paid $1.24!” - Izzy
“Product discovery, where the right consumer has access to the right solution at the right time, is essential. Honey has the solution that people want, now it has to make sure it reaches all the interested folk through channel partnerships.” - Manisha
Honey now has about 17 million monthly active users, who are mostly on the younger side. Similar to an affiliate marketing model, the company takes a commission from merchants when shoppers use Honey (or its rewards program Honey Gold) to make a purchase. The product has saved shoppers over $2 billion to date and generated $100 million in revenue last year. 🛍
PayPal’s plan: PayPal (which currently has 300 million users) will add Honey to its own product line, which includes millennial-minded payments app Venmo. While Honey currently works with around 30,000 merchants, PayPal works with about 24 million merchants, and will now be able to offer more targeted coupons to shoppers.
While investors have historically discounted Chrome extensions, maybe this deal will change things. Some other extensions worth checking out:
💯
Grammarly helps you type mistake-free writing
🙌
Lolli lets you earn Bitcoin when you shop online
👀
Response Viewer shows you multiple screens in one view
🗞
Reader Mode removes clutter and ads from any article
Today’s newsletter recommendation: SmartBrief is a super efficient way to stay updated on essential cybersecurity news. In a world where data breaches, privacy erosion and identity thefts have become commonplace, we are all at risk.
Activate your free subscription here for immediate access to industry news and the latest methods on how to best protect yourself.
Not the news you’re looking for? Subscribe to
While You Were Working, a daily recap of the most interesting stories that happened during your 9-5. Or
click here for SmartBrief’s selection of over 275 unique email news briefings (curated for any profession) by their team of expert editors. 💌
Tired of explaining the same thing over and over again to your colleagues? It’s time to delegate that work to AI. guidde is a GPT-powered tool that helps you explain the most complex tasks in seconds with AI generated documentation.
Simply click capture on our browser extension and the app will automatically generate step-by-step video guides complete with visuals, voiceover and call to actions.
The best part? Our extension is 100% free.
