Ebay Makes $800m Strategic Buyout of Payments Firm Braintree
- Thursday, September 26th, 2013
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Ebay has announced that it is to buy payments company Braintree, which is behind the US-only P2P payments app Venmo.
The $800m acquisition, due to close late this year or early 2014, will enable Ebay to strengthen its Paypal proposition on mobile apps and provide other mPayments services, including peer-to-peer transfers. Paypal has been testing a whole swathe of mobile payments options around the world, including its Here mPOS, the inStore payments app and Beacon hands-free bluetooth payments. It has opened up a range of SDKs and APIs for developers but has struggled to solidify its offering. 
Braintree, whose clients include Airbnb and Uber, also provides merchant accounts, a payment gateway, billing and credit card storage. With this buyout, eBay has taken out a lean mobile competitor, as well as sending signals it is serious to about mobile payments to startup rivals like Square.
