Dwolla raises $5M to continue its work on “really freaky stuff”

Payments startup Dwolla has just announced a $5 million round of funding.

The round was led by Fred Wilson’s Union Square Ventures and saw participation from Village Ventures, Thrive Capital, and LA-area angel Paige Craig, among others.

Dwolla’s services let you send and receive money to and from other users. The startup’s maximum transaction cost is 25 cents per transaction — a distinct and very important competitive advantage in the crowded and cutthroat payments arena. … Continue Reading

Paypal’s mobile payments growing exponentially, reached $4B in 2011

Update: Paypal has confirmed it reached $4 billion in mobile payments last year.

If you need one example that epitomizes the massive potential in mobile payments, you need only look at PayPal.

The online payment company racked up $4 billion worth of mobile payments last year, a huge jump from $750 million in 2010, PayPal mobile vice president David Marcus told VentureBeat in an interview today.

Putting the figure in an even crazier perspective, tallied … Continue Reading

Scandanavian payment startup Klarna nabs a huge $155M round

A handful of big-name venture firms have lobbed a sizable chunk of change at Klarna, a Swedish startup that’s taking on Paypal in the mobile and online payments arena.

This is the startup’s third round of venture capital funding; previously, it had raised just $10 million total, including an angel round that weighed in at less than $100,000.

Now, however, it’s apparently playing in the big leagues, with funding coming from previous investor Sequoia Capital … Continue Reading

Mobile banking pioneer mFoundry nabs $18M from MasterCard, Intel Capital and others

You could say that mFoundry was totally into mobile payments before it was cool. Now the company is reaping the rewards of being an early adopter, announcing today that it has received $18 million in growth-capital funding led by MasterCard, following a recently announced partnership between the two companies.

mFoundry says the funds will be used to push development of new mobile payments products, as well as to expand its mobile banking business. The company … Continue Reading

PayPal launches ‘Send Money’ Facebook app for social payments

Online payments powerhouse PayPal has launched a new Facebook application called Send Money that makes sending payments to your Facebook friends incredibly easy.

PayPal has been dipping its toes into all kinds of payment technologies across mobile and social, and just a week ago PayPal updated its Android application to enable NFC (near-field communications) payments.

The company’s foray into easy social payments with the new Facebook app, however, is a simple, common-sense move. Facebook has … Continue Reading

Amex throws $100M at its biggest problem: suiting up for the digital revolution

American Express has just earmarked a $100 million fund to “identify and develop innovative technologies that will help… accelerate the company’s digital transformation.”

The company, which was founded in 1849, is now establishing a Silicon Valley office to stay on top of the latest developments in mobile and finance technologies.

The new office and fund will be led by Harshul Sanghi, the former head of Motorola Mobility Ventures.

“As we enter the next chapter in … Continue Reading

Confirmed: Square raises $100M, Mary Meeker, Vinod Khosla and Larry Summers now on board

Earlier reports of mobile payments provider Square raising $100 million that arose in June are now confirmed thanks to a Form D filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Chief operating officer Keith Rabois said the company is processing nearly $4 million in payments every day, and it expects to surpass $1 billion by year’s end. The company is signing up between 30,000 and 50,000 new merchants each month. The new funding round reportedly values … Continue Reading

Intuit’s payments team says mobile card readers will die

Payments and financial software provider Intuit has its own mobile card swipe reader, but that’s not stopping it from saying card readers’ days are numbered.

For all the development the company has sunk into its reader — two years’ worth, since the company began working on it in February 2009 — Intuit’s payments product manager Christopher Battles told VentureBeat that the card readers will be extinct as soon as a new technology can replace it.… Continue Reading

Verizon Wireless wants to enable the NFC market

Verizon Wireless has plans to help developers, startups and other companies make the most of Near Field Communications to enable mobile payments as well as other applications.

Verizon Wireless’s executive director of new technology development, Humphrey Chen, took the stage at MobileBeat 2011 here in San Francisco today to talk about the carrier’s plans to enable NFC infrastructure.

The key is the “secure element,” a chunk of data stored on the phone that authenticates NFC … Continue Reading

Google’s plan for mobile and online payments includes Google+

Google’s mobile payment strategy is just getting started, but that doesn’t faze Stephanie Tilenius, the company’s vice president of commerce.

“There’s going to be a ton of innovation in mobile payments,” Tilenius said Tuesday at VentureBeat’s MobileBeat 2011 conference in San Francisco.

“It’s sort of like 1999 was with e-commerce, with eBay and Amazon. We’re at the beginning of 10 years of innovation and competition,” she said.

Tilenius is responsible for Google Wallet, the company’s … Continue Reading

Square COO Keith Rabois on creating an affinity brand for payments

How can a mere mobile payments startup like Square become a beloved brand like Apple or Porsche? According to COO Keith Rabois, it’s by making payments far less frustrating for both consumers and merchants.

Rabois kicked off our MobileBeat 2011 conference today in a fireside chat with VentureBeat’s executive editor Dylan Tweney.

“There’s no reason why one can’t build a high affinity brand of payments,” Rabois said, “given that it’s one of the most common … Continue Reading

eBay buys Zong for $240M to bolster PayPal’s mobile payments

eBay announced today that it has purchased Zong, a company that lets you easily pay for purchases with your mobile phone number, for $240 million in cash.

The acquisition is clearly meant to make PayPal (which eBay owns) an even greater force in the world of mobile payments. Zong’s carrier billing capabilities — the company has relationships with over 250 carriers in 21 languages and 45 countries around the world — will open up even … Continue Reading

Quora explains why Bitcoins are a bad idea

Investing in and using Bitcoins, a digital currency that can be transferred directly from person to person through the Internet, is a particularly bad idea because it is unstable and is being used as a speculative vehicle. That’s the consensus answer on question-and-answer site Quora.

The currency is designed to remove the middle man in transactions. That can be a transaction provider like PayPal or a bank when someone makes a purchase with a credit … Continue Reading

eWise grabs $14M more for secure online payments

eWise, a company that allows people to to make secure online payments, today announced it has secured a second round of funding for $14 million.

The funding will be used to expand Secure Vault Payments, the company’s payment technology, in the U.S. as well as develop a new mobile payments tool for later this year.

The company’s technology provides consumers with a quick and easy way to pay online without having to give out any … Continue Reading

UK payment startups join forces in $87 million merger

2011 seems to be the year that mobile payments go mainstream with everyone from the big mobile carriers and handset manufacturers to scrappy new startups scrambling on to the payments bandwagon.

sQuid and ACT, which together cover 85 percent of the UK’s smartcard-based, contactless payments market, announced a merger today. The new company, Smart Transactions Group is valued at $87 million and expects to generate revenue of $15 million in 2011.

ACT specializes in retail … Continue Reading

Live Gamer and Skrill partner to help online games make money worldwide

Live Gamer has partnered with payment provider Skrill to provide worldwide monetization options for online game publishers. The combined offering makes it easier for game publishers to launch games with Live Gamer’s virtual goods platform and Skrill’s Moneybookers payment system.

The “Live Gamer Payments by Skrill” partnership could remove friction that slows the growth of online games, helping game developers make more money from their games without requiring them to spend a lot of money … Continue Reading

Watch out, PayPal: Facebook gets serious about payments

How committed is Facebook to broadening its revenue streams beyond advertising?

So serious that it’s formed a subsidiary, Facebook Payments, Inc., and is registering it in a host of states.

The move could signal an intent by the world’s largest social network to get more broadly involved in the payments business while also making its business operations more efficient. Right now, it appears unlikely that Facebook will roll out any kind of consumer-facing payments service … Continue Reading

DEMO: Why Manilla is the Postal Service's worst nightmare

Manilla is one of 53 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2011 event taking place this week in Palm Desert, Calif. After our selection, the companies pay a fee to present. Our coverage of them remains objective.

Born out of one of the U.S. Postal Service’s biggest customers comes a threat that could speed the mailer’s inevitable death: Welcome Manilla, a startup backed by magazine publisher Hearst, which aims to put … Continue Reading

Boku and Zong let Verizon customers pay via their phone bill

Boku, which lets users make purchases with their mobile phones the same way they would with a credit card, just announced a partnership with the BilltoMobile payment service, which is directly connected to the Verizon Wireless billing system. Rival payment service Zong has established the same partnership.

This means that Verizon customers can purchase virtual goods, apps and other items and bill them directly to their cell phone bill. BilltoMobile, which has been pursuing an … Continue Reading