Installment Payments Startup Quadpay Snaps Up Fashion Search Engine Urge Holdings

Quadpay is buying fashion search engine Urge Holdings in a deal the installment payments startup hopes will boost sales for its retail partners and give its customers more shopping options.

Quadpay and its buy now, pay later service will pay $6.1 million for Urge Holdings, the Sydney-based company known for The Urge, its fashion search engine, as well as its “Shazam for fashion” app named Schnap.

In announcing the acquisition on Tuesday (Nov. 10), Quadpay said it will roll Urge’s online search technology into its payment service, which enables customers to spread payments out over four, interest-free payments.

Once the integration process is complete, customers will be able to shop for clothing and other apparel armed with a simple photo or screenshot of what they would like to buy.

The new, combined search and payment system will then find both retailers with the items in question, as well as price comparisons, the companies said in a press statement.

Quadpay said its “thousands of merchant partners” will also be able get in on the action as well, with the ability, under the new system, “to offer targeted and more personalized promotions to consumers as a means of acquiring new business and driving increased sales.”

“The Urge acquisition represents a significant milestone in our mission to create the most innovative and intuitive shopping experience so that our customers can shop for exactly what they need for the best price,” said Quadpay Co-CEO Brad Lindenberg, in a press release. “As consumers continue to raise the bar of expectations for the digital shopping experience, this collaboration will also allow us to better curate personalized deals and offers to customers, a natural evolution for us.”

Quadpay said it expects to have onboarded Urge’s search technology by year’s end, and that Urge Holdings co-founders will join Quadpay’s roster to work on product integrations and the scaling of the technology.

“Combining Quadpay’s digital-first installment payment platform with our cutting-edge machine learning and AI technology results in an unparalleled shopping experience for consumers and merchants,” said Doron Ostrin, who co-founded the company with his wife, Cayley Ostrin.