The increasingly popular San Francisco based mobile payment start-up, Square has just announced an incredibly well known, and very wealthy backer. He’s called, Richard Branson – you’ve probably heard of him.
Branson has gone at it himself. He’s not working with any other investors, he’s invested alone, “multimillions” – which, even if only 2 million — is plenty, though I assume it’s at least 10+ million. A spokeswoman for the company declined to comment on the exact amount.
It isn’t like Square is running low on money either. The company received a $100 million investment in June led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and another not known amount by credit card company, Visa.
Square have however announced they are on target for processing $2 billion worth of transactions each year. That is without even leaving America. Square, if used in the UK & Europe would be huge, a target like $2 billion would be a tiny figure.
The company founded two years ago by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is under threat from a company which is dipping in its pockets to cash out on building competition for start-ups (mind the pun). Google is the company. Google have recently announced and introduced a ‘digital wallet’.
Square is a very simple, yet incredibly effective piece of technology; allowing merchants to accept payments via both tablet PC’s (iPad, etc) and/or mobile phones.
Richard Branson doesn’t have to worry about cash being the founder of the Virgin Group. Heck, in a few years Branson may buy Square.
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