02.24.20 - In the second month of 2020 after Visa’s monster $5.3B acquisition of Plaid, Intuit is now eyeing Credit Karma at a $7B purchase price in a cash and stock deal. This raises Credit Karma’s valuation from $4B less than 2 years ago.
Intuit is the creator of Turbo Tax as well as a suite of booking keeping related software. The move is a strong step to helping the FinTech giant further diversify into consumer finance as well as eliminate competition to their flagship products. The acquisition could be pivotal in getting Intuit past a $100B market cap valuation.
This is the largest FinTech acquisition to date and the single largest acquisition by the company. Credit Karma is a consumer finance portal that allows customers free access to credit monitoring, alert users to potential data breaches, as well as tax preparation and filing.
The company is essentially a financial discovery platform and exchange for these free tools customers receive offers for 3rd party credit and financial products. Credit Karma also helps financial companies target consumers more accurately through their credit profiles.
This is another domino in a growing trend of soon to come FinTech giants as legacy brands try to consolidate market power and take out new players that are taking more control of the consumer pipeline before they can further gain ground.
