PayPal Acquires mCommerce Platform Modest

modest-inlinePayPal has made its first acquisition following its spin-off from eBay, purchasing mCommerce platform Modest in order to bring in additional expertise in contextual commerce.

Modests team and tech capabilities will be integrated into the Braintree platform, PayPals payments gateway that was acquired in 2013 for $800m (£511m). The financial terms of the deal with Modest have not been disclosed.

Modest was founded in 2012 by Dylan Richard and Harper Reed, who served as chief technology officer for President Obamas 2012 re-election campaign. It aimed to aid merchants in creating better customer experiences on mobile, either by building apps or integrating store platforms into existing apps, as well as adding buy buttons to marketing campaigns.

The acquisition will enable Modests platform to reach a scale it was previously unable to, while strengthening PayPals capabilities in the emerging field of contextual commerce – innovations like buy buttons, Pinterests Buyable Pins and other streamlined forms of social commerce.

“Social media networks are evolving from places where people share and discover great new things to places where they buy the things they find, at the moment of discovery. And, of course, people increasingly want to do all of this on mobile,” said Bill Ready, senior vice president, global head of merchant and next-generation commerce at Paypal.

“At PayPal we are always striving to innovate commerce experiences and make them better for both merchants and shoppers. Modest allows merchants to offer an end-to-end experience that makes selling on any platform easier and simpler. They have built exceptional mobile technology and bring deep talent in contextual commerce to PayPal.”