Market Kurly acquires payment gateway startup PayBot

Kurly, the operator of the grocery shopping app Market Kurly, has acquired an electronic payment and settlement startup, Paybot. The acquisition is part of the unicorn startup’s evolutionary strategy to have its payment system and become an ‘open market’ platform.

The food delivery startup has acquired a 100 percent stake in Paybot, a payment gateway startup that facilitates transactions by authorizing credit cards or processing direct payments. Customers currently purchase items on Market Kurly using payment systems such as Naver Pay, Smile Pay, Chai, Kakao Pay, Toss and Payco. With the acquisition, Kurly wants to start its own payment service to enjoy further benefits by paying and earning Market Kurly loyalty points. It will develop a system within its online payment service that makes settling payments for outside sellers easier.

New payment gateway to also aid Market Kurly sellers

Kurly expects to strengthen its product assortment and broaden customers’ product options while at the same time providing additional opportunities for more partners to sell diverse products. Kurly plans an e-commerce system in which individual sellers can enter the platform and are charged a commission for selling. Until now, Market Kurly has been directly buying the products they sell to the customers. With the change, Kurly expects its e-commerce platform to carry more types of products.

Currently, Kurly operates about 30,000 products from about 2,000 partners through direct purchase, 96% of which are small and medium-sized businesses, and there is a demand for a more convenient and quick settlement system. Kurly expects that once the upgrade of the settlement service is completed, it will be able to contribute to the business stability of partner companies, which are small and medium-sized businesses, as the convenience of settlement increases.

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