M-payment: Intuit Buys AisleBuyer
- Intuit has just acquired AisleBuyer: a start-up focusing on m-commerce, and notably on enabling payment through card images captures. The terms of their agreement have not yet been unveiled; however, according to some sources, the amount of the transaction could reach 80 to 100 million dollars.
- Intuit is planning to rely on AisleBuyer’s know-how to improve its m-payment services. Its platform have in fact been designed to enable merchants to set up tailored offers and dedicated tools to help their staff in assisting customers in-store (mClerk app for instance).
- AisleBuyer’s platform can also be seen as a bridge to ensure the migration of points of sales –including GoPayment acceptors– towards a more rationalised ecosystem (Cloud).
Source: AisleBuyer Blog
- Through this acquisition, Intuit gains further expertise to counter its rivals (Square, PayPal, and others Tabbedout, for instance –see previous Insights).
- Innovation stands at the heart of this initiative, and rumours have it that only the technical teams may be joining Intuit. Founded in 2009, AisleBuyer has managed to raise 11.5 million dollar over the years, and mostly proposes mobile cash collection solutions: mShop and mDine (respectively, for in-store virtual checkout and to book/pay at the restaurant). In 2011, the company was planning several partnerships and large-scale deployments.
- Available in iOS, Android and BlackBerry, AisleBuyer’s apps rely on barcode scanning: the users first had to provide all their card data manually yet the addition of OCR tools has made this process easier (a picture of the card is sent and the required data automatically extracted).