On Friday, CEO and Co-founder of iZettle, Jacob de Geer announced he and his team have reached an agreement with PayPal to acquire the Swedish fintech. The acquisition agreement comes less than two weeks after the company announced its plan to proceed with an initial public offering (IPO) or and to list its shares on Nasdaq Stockholm. In an open letter, de Geer revealed more details about the acquisition:
“As you might have heard, we were preparing the company for a potential IPO. But plans sometimes change. Late in the IPO process, PayPal got in touch and showed a serious interest in iZettle. The relationship with PayPal is not a new one, in fact we’ve talked about different ways of working together for years. But this time it very quickly turned into a detailed discussion on how we could benefit from joining forces. And we both realised the great opportunity in doing just that.
“Teaming up with another company is no small thing. But during our discussions with PayPal’s President and CEO Dan Schulman and his team, it has become obvious that we share the same belief in the power of small businesses. They create diversity, choice and opportunity in society, but they’re still underserved by the incumbents. Small businesses deserve something better.”
de Geer also noted that PayPal views iZettle’s capabilities and talent as best-in-class and he and his team will work together to scale the company’s reach and geographical footprint.
“iZettle will become a center of excellence for PayPal’s in-store product and services offerings for small businesses going forward, which I’m really excited about. Creating a center of excellence in Stockholm with a global reach means a lot to me. Sweden has been a great breeding ground for us and has birthed success stories like Spotify, Skype, Klarna, Mojang and King. I’m proud to add iZettle to Sweden’s impressive list of tech greats.”
In regards to joining PayPal, de Geer added:
“That’s why we’re so excited to join PayPal. We’ll continue to work in much the same way we always have, just as a member of a global family with great expansion opportunities. We’ll continue pursuing our mission of helping small businesses succeed in a world of giants and our teams and culture will remain our key strengths. By joining the PayPal family we’ll become iZettle with superpowers and jump on a fast track to realise our vision. The opportunity to become part of PayPal was too good to pass up. Not only because of what it means for iZettle and for iZettle’s employees, but because of what we can offer to our merchants.”