Loop Talks $10M Round, Sets First Product Launch Date

Massachusetts-based mobile commerce solution provider Loop revealed in an exclusive interview with PYMNTS.com as part of our Breakthrough Series that it has secured $10 million in Series A angel investor funding (Jump to 0:30).

Graylin hinted that later funding rounds will not be kept to the company’s inner circle and that they will be open to institutions. Further, the CEO suggested that this funding could be imminent (Jump to 5:52).
That wasn’t all that Loop CEO Will Graylin revealed to Market Platform Dynamics (MPD) CEO Karen Webster, though. Graylin announced that the company is ready to ship The Loop Fob (pictured above), a $34 device that plugs into iPhone and Android headphone jacks and allows users to store credit and gift card information that can then be transmitted to point-of-sale (POS) systems.

Graylin said the first batch of a few thousand products will be delivered to the company’s Kickstarter backers within the next two weeks (Jump to 2:45). The Loop Fob will be the first device from Loop to debut in the market. The company noted that it is currently accepting pre-orders, and that these devices would be shipped “as quickly as possible.”

“The $10 million is to help us get this launch going, and to also help us do additional product development to enhance our application, as well as new form factors,” Graylin told PYMNTS.com (Jump to 4:16).

Graylin also suggested that the funding would be used to do more than simply satisfy backorders, indicating Loop plans to use the capital to build out additional products and services for merchants and card issuers.

However, despite the recent funding successes, Webster pushed Graylin to open up about Loop’s value proposition and its chance of success in the market, especially given that both parties agreed – and past PYMNTS articles have confirmed – that VCs are likely to continue funding more mobile payments startups (Jump to 6:24)

For more on how Loop aims to offer consumers security through dynamic track data (Jump to 11:00), how the company is prepared for the U.S. EMV migration (Jump to 12:37) and what Loop is predicting will happen in the mobile payments ecosystem in 2014 and 2015, listen to our full podcast here.

Part 1

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Part 2

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Will Graylin CEO of Loop
Will Wang Graylin has started five companies focused on mobile computing, security and payments since his graduate thesis on “Addressing the Complexity of Mobile Computing” at MIT nearly a decade ago. Mr. Graylin is currently the founder and CEO of Loop. He recently served as CEO of ROAM Data, a premier mobile application and payment services company, helping enterprises extend valuable data and transactions to the cell phones of their mobile professionals.

He serves of the Board of Movylo a Mobile Marketing company and ONvocal, Inc., both privately held companies. From December 2001 to April 2007 he was founder and CEO of WAY Systems, a mobile Point of Sales (POS) services company. He grew WAY from zero to the #2 Mobile POS provider in the U.S. and was honored with the 2005 “Movers & Shakers Award” by Transaction World magazine. Prior to WAY from March 2000 to November 2001 he was founder and CEO of EntitleNet, a security software company, sold to BEA Systems for a profit in 2001. Before that from March 1999 to March 2000 he was founding President of Marbles, later Skyfire Technologies, the first mobile thin client software company focused on enterprise applications for mobile workforces. He earned two Masters degrees from MIT (MBA & MSEECSS) through the Leaders for Manufacturing program, after serving as a US Navy Nuclear Submarine Officer for nearly 6 years, the first naturalized China-born immigrant to serve in this program. Will is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.