“We now have lots of glowing @Squares,” tweeted Twitter co-founder and Square CEO Jack Dorsey this week, attaching the above image. Square does have plenty to be glowing about, as the company has secured a new $100 million round of funding.
In April, Square received an investment from Visa. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company is now valued at $1 billion.
This new round comes from a group of investors led by led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Marry Meeker of Kleiner Perkins is also now a Square Board member.
@Square
Square, Inc.To continue to empower everyone to accept payments anywhere, we’ve
raised $100 million in our Series C Financing, led by @kpcb.
11 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
@jack
Jack DorseyThrilled to announce that Mary Meeker of @KPCB is joining @Square‘s board! And we raised $100 million. Putting more people into business. 11 hours ago via Twitter for iPad · powered by @socialditto
Last month, Square unveiled Card Case, an ambitious project aimed at consumers as a way to set up tabs with merchants, and implement automatic payments with their mobile devices. The company calls it “your friendly neighborhood way to pay.”
Along with this, came Square Register for merchants, which is a redux of the Square iPad app, allowing them to send customers Card Case links. These features should be key in Square’s strategy to compete with a growing number of potential major players in the mobile payments space, including PayPal, and the forthcoming Google Wallet.
We’re still wondering if Twitter might get into this space with Dorsey’s obvious experience and knowledge of the field, and a major boost to Twitter-as-an-identity soon to come with the release of Apple’s iOS, which will see tight integration with Twitter throughout the OS and its apps.