What happened: The Danish company Ageras acquired storefront provider Storebuddy (Fintech Futures). I already covered Ageras in the past, which offers services and a marketplace focused on accounting and tax advisory. The company operates in six different European countries and took significant fintech steps with the acquisition of German freelancer neobank Kontist, the launch of an embedded banking offering in the Netherlands under their band Tellow, and the acquisition of French SME neobank Shine.
Storebuddy enables entrepreneurs and small businesses to keep their e-commerce shop and accounting in sync, which can be a nightmare if done separately.
My comment: Agera’s acquisition of Storebuddy may sound less of an embedded finance move than perhaps the acquisition of a fintech company like Kontist and Shine. However, if you know my embedded finance intro deck, you may remember that I like to say that an embedded finance product needs to achieve a 1+1=3 customer value proposition(check the deck for more details). To achieve such outcomes, embedded finance companies need to invest as much at the intersection of their fintech and non-fintech product offerings as they do in the fintech product itself. Storebuddy might not be a fintech product itself, but if integrated well, it might be the tool to drive more fintech product usage among Agera’s core customers.
