PayPal Buys StackMob To Continue Mobile Payment Push

PayPal has confirmed that it has purchased San Francisco-based app developer StackMob. PayPal's spokeswoman wouldn't comment on terms of the deal but did say that 18 of StackMob's engineers will be relocating to PayPal's headquarters in San Jose.

PayPal has been a cash-machine for parent company Ebay (it accounted for 42% of Ebay's revenue last quarter), but in recent years Paypal has earned a reputation as bloated, complacent  company with bad customer service and archaic software that was a nightmare for outside developers to work with. New PayPal CEO David is trying to change all that. Since taking over in March of 2012,  he's reorganized the guts of the company, making the platform more flexible and developer friendly. In the meantime he's  been on a talent shopping spree--most notably this fall when he dropped $800 million Braintree, a mobile payments company with an API that developers loved.

Marcus wants Paypal to dominate payments--both online and in the real world. To do that, mobile is key. Scooping StackMob will give Paypal more firepower in the looming battle for mobile payments as smartphones begin to replace credit cards and cash.

Here's Paypal's statement:

PayPal Welcomes the StackMob Team

By James Barrese, CTO, PayPal

It’s an exciting time to be a technologist at PayPal!  Today we are able to share that the talented engineering team from StackMob has joined PayPal.

StackMob is best known for its outstanding work in developing a platform that let developers and companies easily create and manage mobile applications. We are thrilled to have the StackMob team put those same skills and expertise toward enhancing PayPal’s technology stack.

While projects underway at PayPal have already accelerated our ability to deliver great products to our customers, we believe that with the addition of the talented team from StackMob, we’ll move even faster in creating, testing and deploying products that aim to transform payments for customers around the world.

But don’t just take my word for it – let’s hear from StackMob’s CEO, Ty Amell:

“By joining PayPal, the StackMob team will maintain its focus on developers and extending innovative mobile technologies that aim to allow consumers to access the rich capabilities of the PayPal global network. We believe that our work at PayPal will make it easier for developers to create seamless payment solutions that span online, mobile, and in-store experiences.”

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