They’re not hoping to win a record deal, but they are seeking legions of adoring fans and to be the next great payments business.
CashStar (David Stone, CEO)
Website: http://www.cashstar.com/
Highlights
- Industry’s first digital gifting and incentives platform that enables customers to email personalized gift cards
- Helps retailers reap the benefits of seamlessly integrating digital gift cards, coupons and incentives into their marketing and engagement programs
- How it helps retailers: pay with points programs, eWarranty, make-goods, incent for consumers to act
- Platform designed to work with all channels and form factors
- Client base includes Home Depot, Starbucks, Chili’s, Staples, Dell, The Cheesecake Factory, and dozens more
- Based in Portland, Maine, CashStar is privately held and has received venture funds from a multi-billion dollar global investment firm
Latest CashStar News on PYMNTS.com
Braintree (Bryan Johnson, CEO)
Website: http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com/
Highlights
Helps online businesses process credit card payments by providing a merchant account, payment gateway, recurring billing, and credit card storage
- Works with companies primarily based in the U.S. but does have several large international customers
- Processed more than 1 billion in credit card volume in 2009
- A Level 1 PCI DSS provider
- Compounded growth rate of 300%; currently 20 employees; founded in 2007
Related article: Creating Order From Chaos in Online Payments
appbackr (Trevor Cornwell, Founder & CEO)
Website: http://www.appbackr.com/
Highlights
- First and only digital wholesale marketplace for the iPhone and iPad application market
- Applies the time-honored wholesale model to the digital age
- Solves common funding and distribution problems of application developers
- Developers sell units of an app to buyers on its marketplace, giving developers immediate funds prior to final iTunes Store sale and even generating additional revenue
- Distribution on appbackr marketplace via PayPal
- Winner of 2010 PayPal X Developer Challenge
Latest appbackr News on PYMNTS.com
eBillme (Marwan Forzley, President & CEO)
Website: http://www.ebillme.com/
Highlights
- Enables consumers from over 17,000 financial institutions to use online banking when they shop online
- Offers consumers a secure cash payment option, which includes a cash back rewards program and a comprehensive Buyer Protection program, and the eBillme Debt Free Mall online shopping site
- Launched its first merchant in 2005
- Has experienced growth in revenue of over 300%
- Serves the US$632 Billion retail eCommerce and call center industries
- Leads the field in enabling websites to checkout with online banking
- Boasts over 800 online stores
- Enables online merchants to securely offer cash as a payment option by seamlessly integrating online banking bill pay with existing eCommerce infrastructures
- Headquartered in New York with offices throughout the United States and in Ottawa, Canada
PYMNTS.com Company Profile: eBillme
iCache (Jonathan Cool, President & COO)
Website: http://www.icache.com/
Highlights
- Has developed the world’s first intelligent, secure and easy-to-use Digital Wallet
- Packages its patented security technology into a wallet form factor
- Can uniquely consolidate anything that it is the consumer’s wallet with a magnetic stripe or bar code into a single card
- Employs unique technologies that allow the iCache Digital Wallet to bring convenience and security to consumers, immense value to card issuing organizations and great benefit to merchants
- May be used online and at brick and mortar locations without any changes at the merchant level
- Its technology is extensible into other devices for use in payments, e-Health, m-Advertising, m-Couponing, etc.
Latest iCache News on PYMNTS.com
PaySimple (Eric Remer, CEO)
Website: http://www.paysimple.com/
Highlights
- Strives to create distribution that allows small businesses to find the PaySimple Solution via channels such as the Internet and industry partners and products that bridge the gap for small business owners
- Enable small business owners to simplify their businesses and their lives through automation technology
- Partners include American Express
Related article: Checks are Checking Out – Will that be Cash, Credit or Mobile?
ROAM Data (Will Graylin, Founder & CEO)
Website: http://www.roamdata.com/
Highlights
- Provides a single development platform to create and update commerce applications that run securely on all major mobile devices
- Offers all the essential services to make it easy to provision and support direct sales forces of any size
- Combines powerful business applications and content with secure payment capabilities
- Delivered across different mobile phones, to end users As-A-Service
- Full Payment Gateway Capabilities can provide payments of all kinds, from Credit and Debit Card processing, Electronic Check capture, ACH funds transfer, to Prepaid Debit and Gift Card processing
- Has connections to most of the major payment processors in the country, and currently processes $Billions in transactions every year
- Delivers transactions from virtually any mobile device to virtually any payment processor is truly unique in the industry
- Fully Hosted Mobile Services provides provisioning, application management, and 24X7 support of end-users, speeding up time to market and reducing total costs of ownership for the enterprise
- Easy Enterprise Application Integration allows seamless connections with enterprise back-ends using web services without any change to their existing applications or databases
- A fast and easy way to develop & update mobile apps without device programming experience, enabling speedy content delivery, and continuous improvement
Related article: Creating Killer Apps for Merchants’ Mobile Commerce
ShopText (Steve Roberts, Founder & CEO)
Website: https://www.shoptext.com/
Highlights
- Leader in mobile promotion response and loyalty
- Integrates directly with any CRM database, fulfillment center, order management, POS or loyalty card platform
- Works across all major U.S. mobile networks
- SaaS mobile platform enables brands and retailers to engage consumers from any ad with a simple text message and creates a new opt-in direct-to-consumer channel
- Consumers can easily request a coupon, rebate, free sample or enter a sweepstakes without having to go online or call a 1-800 number
- Every ShopText-enabled ad response and completion is measured in real-time so retailers and brands can immediately determine their offline media ROI
Related article: PYMNTS Innovator: Cash, Check or Text: Mobile Payments for the other 97%
getta! (Karen Webster, Founder)
Website: http://www.mygetta.com/
Highlights
- A social commerce platform that brings together merchants that want to gain profitable sales on their Facebook fan pages with customers looking for those offers
- Platform provides merchants with a turnkey technology application that enables collective action around volume-based sales or other special offers, enables this via existing merchant eCommerce systems, and automatically messages their fans that an offer is available
- System has offer-specific viral and other social media capabilities that leverage the social graph to drive new customers to merchant offer
- Notifications of offers are automatically pushed to “fans” and incentives are offered by getta! for people to share the offer with their network and post to their profiles
- Goal is to enable the profitable sale of physical “head of tail” products for merchants that want to reach a national audience with a value proposition of volume-based pricing or offers based on limited quantities.
- Platform makes it easy for people with common interests to form groups around an offer and taps into existing groups to take advantage of that offer
PYMNTS.com Blog Entries from the Innovation Institute
Day 1
- David S. Evans: Why the Time Is Right for Innovation (and Cash Is Not Dead) (9 a.m.)
- No Need to Give a Eulogy for Venture Capital (10 a.m.)
- There’s Two Sides to Every [Payments Platform] Story (11:30 a.m.)
- The Key to Igniting and Launching Mobile Payments Platforms (12:30 p.m.)
- Fed’s Proposal for Interchange Rates to Be Announced Within a Few Weeks (2:30 p.m.)
- What Payments Professionals Can Learn from FarmVille (4 p.m.)
- Driving Network Effects with Platforms (4:30 p.m.)
- What Is The Next Great Payment App That Has Yet To Be Created? (5 p.m.)
Day 2
- Can the U.S. Replicate Japan’s Mobile Payments Success? (8:30 a.m.)
- POS Opportunities around Social Networking (9:30 a.m.)
- POS Innovation in the Cloud (10:30 a.m.)
- American Idol: Payments Innovation Style (Noon)
- Federal Reserve: Cash Usage Increased in 2009 (1:30 p.m.)
- Tips for Catering to Consumers’ Payment Preferences (2:30 p.m.)
- How Walmart Views Consumer Payments Behavior (3 p.m.)
