PayPal Holdings, Inc.
Acquisitions
6
Major Deals Covered
$10.7B
Disclosed Deal Value
PayPal's largest disclosed acquisition here is Honey for $4B in 2020. This page covers 6 major deals from 2013 to 2021, each with its price where disclosed and the reason behind it.
| Company | Year | Price | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Braintree | 2013 | $800.0M | PayPal acquired Braintree to strengthen its mobile payments infrastructure. Braintree had strong developer tools and relationships with startups. It also owned Venmo which was rapidly growing. The acquisition aligned with PayPal's strategy to expand into mobile-first payments. |
| Xoom | 2015 | $890.0M | Expand international remittances and cross-border money transfer capabilities. |
| IZettle | 2018 | $2.2B | Expand in-person small-business payment acceptance and point-of-sale tools. |
| Honey | 2020 | $4.0B | Add shopping discovery, coupon tools, and pre-checkout consumer engagement. |
| Paidy | 2021 | $2.7B | Expand Buy Now Pay Later and consumer payments in Japan. |
| Simility | 2018 | $120.0M | Strengthen fraud prevention, risk management, and merchant protection tools. |
2021
$2.7B
Expand Buy Now Pay Later and consumer payments in Japan.
Added a Japanese BNPL platform and local market presence.
Paidy gave PayPal a stronger position in Japan and a local BNPL product in a market where payment habits differ from the United States. The acquisition expanded geographic capability, but BNPL regulation and credit economics make the payoff more uncertain than pure checkout software.
2020
$4.0B
Add shopping discovery, coupon tools, and pre-checkout consumer engagement.
Expanded PayPal into shopping rewards and deal discovery.
Honey gave PayPal a way to engage consumers before checkout, but the strategic fit proved less powerful than Braintree. The deal is often criticized because the price was high and the connection to PayPal's core transaction economics was harder to demonstrate.
2018
$2.2B
Expand in-person small-business payment acceptance and point-of-sale tools.
Added offline merchant hardware and omnichannel payment capability.
The acquisition gave PayPal a stronger offline merchant product, especially in Europe and small-business environments. It helped fill an omnichannel gap, but it did not displace Block/Square as the defining small-merchant point-of-sale ecosystem.
2018
$120M
Strengthen fraud prevention, risk management, and merchant protection tools.
Added machine-learning fraud and risk capabilities.
Simility fit PayPal's core risk-management DNA by improving fraud detection and decisioning. The acquisition was smaller than PayPal's consumer-facing deals, but close to the trust problem that has defined the company since its earliest years.
2015
$890M
Expand international remittances and cross-border money transfer capabilities.
Added a consumer remittance platform and international transfer use cases.
Xoom extended PayPal beyond checkout into cross-border consumer money movement. The acquisition gave PayPal a remittance brand and international payout capabilities, though the business remains more specialized than the core wallet.
2013
$800M
PayPal acquired Braintree to strengthen its mobile payments infrastructure. Braintree had strong developer tools and relationships with startups. It also owned Venmo which was rapidly growing. The acquisition aligned with PayPal's strategy to expand into mobile-first payments.
The acquisition improved PayPal's mobile capabilities, added Venmo, and expanded reach among high-growth app companies such as Uber. It increased transaction volume and developer credibility without pulling the company far from payments.
The deal achieved its most important goal by giving PayPal mobile payment infrastructure, developer credibility, enterprise merchant relationships, and Venmo. It remains the clearest acquisition example of strengthening the core payment transaction rather than moving far away from checkout.
Under Enrique Lores, PayPal's 2026 plan has three parts. First, restore growth in branded checkout, which rose only about 2% in Q2 2026, by improving conversion, Fastlane guest checkout and agentic or AI-assisted commerce. Second, make Venmo and Braintree pull more weight: Venmo is being pushed into merchant payments and debit cards, while Braintree is priced for profit rather than volume. Third, fund reinvestment through cost cuts, including a reported plan to reduce headcount by about 20% over two to three years and roughly $1.5 billion of savings, plus share repurchases supported by at least $6 billion of expected 2026 adjusted free cash flow.
PayPal makes most of its money from transaction revenue: fees merchants pay when customers check out with the PayPal or Venmo button (branded checkout), fees on unbranded card processing through Braintree, and consumer fees such as instant transfers, cross-border and currency conversion charges. Branded checkout carries the highest margin because PayPal controls the customer relationship; Braintree adds large volume at thinner margins. A second line, revenue from other value-added services, covers interest on customer balances, PayPal Credit and buy now, pay later loans, partner and referral fees. In Q2 2026, transaction revenue was about $7.8 billion of $8.68 billion total, and transaction margin dollars, the profit after processing costs and losses that management tracks most closely, were about $3.9 billion.
In September 2013, PayPal (under eBay) acquired mobile payment gateway Braintree for $800 million in cash. The acquisition included Venmo (which Braintree had acquired for $26M in 2012), giving PayPal the most valuable asset of mobile P2P payments and modern developer APIs.
In January 2020, PayPal completed its largest acquisition in history by purchasing online coupon, discount, and shopping discovery platform Honey Science for approximately $4.0 billion in cash, aiming to integrate deals and price-tracking directly into the top of the shopping funnel.
In 2018, PayPal acquired Swedish mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) company iZettle for $2.2 billion in cash, instantly giving PayPal an in-store physical retail merchant acquiring presence across Europe and Latin America.
In November 2015, shortly after its spinoff from eBay, PayPal acquired digital international money transfer pioneer Xoom for $890 million, allowing PayPal users to send digital remittances, pay international utility bills, and reload mobile phones in 160+ countries.
In September 2021, PayPal acquired leading Japanese Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) provider Paidy for approximately $2.7 billion in cash, expanding PayPal's footprint in Japan's large, cash-dominant ecommerce market.
In 2018, PayPal acquired Hyperwallet for $400 million, enhancing its global mass-payout capabilities to disburse multi-currency funds to digital marketplace sellers, gig workers, and contractors in over 200 markets.
In March 2021, PayPal acquired Curv, an Israeli cloud-based digital asset and cryptocurrency security infrastructure company, bringing multi-party computation (MPC) cryptography talent to support PayPal's digital wallet crypto and stablecoin (PYUSD) initiatives.
Since the 2021 Paidy deal PayPal has avoided large acquisitions. Under Alex Chriss and now Enrique Lores it has focused on organic product work, cost cuts and buybacks. In 2026 PayPal itself became a target when Stripe and Advent International made a reported $53 billion approach that the board rejected.
Compare corporate acquisition records, deal values, and strategic targets
Explore PayPal
Core profile pages, founders and related research hubs for this company.