PayPal says card.io acquisition won’t affect developers

Online payments provider PayPal has acquired US-based start-up card.io, but insists card.io’s software development kits for iOS and Android will continue to remain available for developers.

Based in San Francisco, card.io was founded by Mike Mettler and Josh Bleecher Snyder. It allows developers to capture credit card information by using a smartphone’s built-in camera.

According to card.io’s website, the company has six employees, including the founders. In 2011, card.io raised $1 million but hasn’t taken any funding since. It has now been acquired by PayPal for an undisclosed sum.

Hill Ferguson, PayPal’s vice president of global product, confirmed the acquisition in a company blog, and highlighted the strength of the existing relationship between the two companies.

“We first met with the team at card.io when we were working on integrating their technology into the PayPal Here mobile app,” Ferguson said.

“While working with them, we were simply blown away by the creativity and drive of their employees.”

Ferguson said card.io will join PayPal’s global product team in San Jose to “help us create new experiences to make it even easier for consumers and merchants to use the PayPal digital wallet”.

He confirmed the current card.io technology will remain available to developers for use in their own applications.

“The card.io team is joining PayPal for the same reasons that the Zong team was excited to join PayPal last year – to get the opportunity to work on projects that will accelerate innovation at a scale that’s just not possible at a start-up,” he said.

In July last year, Zong was acquired for around $240 million by eBay, which owns PayPal. Zong provides payments through mobile carrier billing.

At the time of the deal, it was stated Zong will eventually become part of PayPal.

PayPal’s acquisition of card.io isn’t the only hot news of the day. Tech start-up success story Dropbox has acquired TapEngage, another San Francisco start-up.

Dropbox operates a file hosting service which offers cloud storage, file synchronisation and client software.

It allows users to create a special folder on each of their computers, which it then synchronises so that it appears to be the same folder regardless of the computer it is viewed on.

Dropbox Inc. was founded in 2007 by university graduates Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi as a Y Combinator start-up.

In October last year, Dropbox raised $250 million in funding, with a reported valuation of $4 billion. It has now acquired TapEngage.

Founded by Matt Holden and Sean Lynch, TapEngage enables advertisers and publishers to collaborate on tablet-optimised advertising.

“We started TapEngage because we’re really excited about the potential for new mobile technologies to change the face of commerce and computing,” the founders said in a blog.

“We were fortunate enough to collaborate with a wide set of partners doing amazing things in the industry.”

“However, sometimes you find a company that is making such an incredible impact, you can’t help but want to join forces.”

The founders said they are “thrilled” to announce the acquisition, but are still working with the Dropbox team to determine how the deal will eventuate.