Balanced has announced that it is closing down its marketplace payment platform.
"Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to reach the escape velocity necessary to be a large, innovative, independent player in the payments space and have decided not to continue building Balanced," the company wrote in a blog post.
Amid apologies, Balanced told its customers that it would be sunsetting its API and dashboard on June 11. Support for refunds, transaction inquiries, and chargeback requests will be available until October 9. The company says it will be transitioning customers over to competing platform Stripe, which "will honor our existing payment agreements."
Balanced operated in a highly competitive market for processing e-commerce transactions, and Stripe is the hot young business leading the pack with $190 million in venture funding. Comparatively, Balanced only raised $3.4 million. Though the company was processing over $370 million in sales at one point, Balanced's dynamic pricing model and lower price point ultimately wasn't enough to win the market.
The closure narrows the field for sure, leaving Stripe, Braintree, and Dwolla to duke it out.