This comes from the CTO of Hubspot, a CRM tool that last year bought the newsletter the Hustle. Multiple banks/fintechs have done the same. Over the previous months,
JP Morgan has purchased 2 content/media companies: The Infatuation, a publisher that offers reviews and recommendations on restaurants, and Frank, an online portal that helps students research and apply for financial aid. As early as 2017, Stripe acquired Indie Hackers, a website and community focusing on helping entrepreneurs become profitable while remaining independent.
Pinterest is not strictly a content company like the above examples. However, PayPal could still leverage the buy to reach its users more directly and build an ongoing relationship with them.
2. Owning the whole funnel
The value proposition for Paypal + Pinterest is strong: What would you like as a merchant: A simple payment solution or a simple payment solution that also drives more customers into your site? Pinterest can certainly drive more customers:
77% of active pinners have discovered a new product on Pinterest and are 7x more likely to buy a product they have found. The holy grail for payment providers is to provide everything from consideration, payment, and loyalty in one app, and buying Pinterest could have made this a reality for PayPal.